Lawsuit by New Orleans truck attack victims says city, contractors failed to implement safety system

Six people who were injured and the father of a man who was killed in the New Year's truck attack filed a lawsuit Thursday against the City of New Orleans and two contractors, claiming they failed to protect revelers from an Army veteran who sped around a police blockade and raced down Bourbon Street, killing 14 people and injuring at least 30.

The attack by Shamsud-Din Jabbar was tragic but preventable, leaving the six victims with broken bones, physical suffering and mental anguish and killing Brandon Taylor, according to the lawsuit filed in Orleans Parish Civil District Court by Matthew Hemmer with the Morris Bart Law Firm. Jabbar was killed in a shootout with police.

The plaintiffs, who are seeking unspecified damages, include Alexis Windham, who suffered impact and gunshot injuries to her foot, and Corian Evans, Jalen Lilly, Justin Brown, Shara Frison and Gregory Townsend, who suffered broken bones and other injuries. They were joined by Brandon Taylor's father, Joseph. Windham, Evans, Lilly and Brown are from Alabama while Frison and Townsend are from Missouri.

Taylor, 43, worked as a restaurant cook in the New Orleans area and loved music, especially rap. He leaves behind his fiancee, who was with him when he was killed, and his father.

Email and phone messages left with the City of New Orleans, Mayor LaToya Cantrell, and contractors Mott MacDonald and Hard Rock Construction seeking comment on the lawsuit were not immediately returned.

Incidents of vehicles driving into crowds started increasing after 2016, when 86 people were killed on Bastille Day in Nice, France, the lawsuit said. New Orleans sought advice on the risk of this type of attack in the French Quarter and invested $40 million in public safety improvement projects, including acquiring portable bollards — protective columns designed to block vehicle traffic —to keep cars off Bourbon Street.

However, the bollards were often disabled when the tracks they move on got clogged with beads, drink containers, rainwater and other fluids, the lawsuit said. A 2019 report by New York firm Interfor International said the French Quarter was at risk for a vehicular attack, adding “the current bollard system on Bourbon Street does not appear to work" and should be fixed immediately.

An April 2024 report by Mott MacDonald, a design firm hired for roadway projects, included the possibility of a Ford F-150 truck turning on to Bourbon Street, which is what happened on New Year's Day, but the company's bollard replacement project did not include fixed bollards in the French Quarter, the lawsuit said.

Construction on the safety updates began in November, but work on Canal Street didn't begin until Dec. 19 and construction was ongoing on Jan. 1, when the attack occurred, the suit said. Authorities have said Jabbar drove an F-150 pickup truck onto a sidewalk around a police car blockading the Canal Street entrance to Bourbon Street.

“Appropriate barriers, temporary or otherwise, were not erected in the construction site,” the lawsuit said. “As a result, the intersection had the appearance of a soft target. Upon initial penetration, Mr. Jabbar was able to travel approximately three blocks down Bourbon Street.”

The contractors and the city failed to implement an effective system for deterring such a threat, the suit said.

Two other law firms announced Wednesda y that they represent nearly two dozen victims of the attack and are conducting their own investigation, stating “officials were tragically aware and did not protect the public.”

Members of the FBI and bomb squad detonated a suspicious package from the blue cooler, bottom right, damaging a doorway according to an eyewitness at Bourbon Street near Toulouse Street during the investigation of truck crashing into pedestrians on Bourbon Street in the French Quarter in New Orleans, Wednesday, Jan. 1, 2025. (AP Photo/Matthew Hinton)

FILE - Emergency services attend to the scene on Bourbon Street after a vehicle drove into a crowd on New Orleans' Canal and Bourbon Street on Wednesday, Jan. 1, 2025. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert, File)

People walk past a memorial on Canal Street for the victims of a deadly truck attack on New Year's Day in New Orleans, Friday, Jan. 3, 2025. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)

Flowers and votive candles line a memorial for the victims of a deadly truck attack on New Year's Day in New Orleans, Friday, Jan. 3, 2025. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)

A memorial on Bourbon Street sits at the site of a deadly truck attack on New Year's Day in New Orleans, Friday, Jan. 3, 2025. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)

FILE - An Islamic State flag lies on the ground rolled up behind the pickup truck that Shamsud-Din Jabbar drove into a crowd on Bourbon Street in New Orleans on Wednesday, Jan. 1, 2025. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert, File)

FILE - The barricade that Shamsud-Din Jabbar hit with his truck while driving into a crowd on New Year's Day is seen on Bourbon Street, Thursday, Jan. 2, 2025, in New Orleans. (AP Photo/George Walker IV, File)

WARSAW, Poland (AP) — Tech billionaire Elon Musk livestreamed his chat with a leader of Germany's far-right party on Thursday, using the power of his social media platform, X, to amplify the party's message ahead of an upcoming national election — and raising concerns across Europe about the world's richest man trying to influence foreign politics.

Musk, who worked last year to help reelect Donald Trump in the United States, told Alice Weidel, a co-leader of the Alternative for Germany party and its candidate for chancellor, that he was “strongly recommending that people vote for AfD,” using the party's acronym. The audience for the livestream peaked at more than 200,000 X accounts.

Musk and Weidel agreed that Germany’s taxes are too high, that there is too much immigration, and that it was a mistake for the country to shut down nuclear power plants.

Musk said he hoped the conversation showed people that Weidel is reasonable. “Nothing outrageous has been proposed, just common sense,” Musk said. “People really need to get behind the AfD, otherwise things are going to get very, very much worse in Germany.”

The AfD has been put under observation by Germany’s domestic intelligence agency for suspected extremism, and mainstream parties have shunned working with it. The AfD has strongly rejected the designation, portraying it as a political attempt to discredit the party.

Musk and Weidel emphasized the importance of free speech, and Weidel used the topic as an opportunity to refute the idea that the AfD shares any affinity with the country’s Nazi past. She said one of Adolf Hitler’s first acts after seizing power was to restrict speech. She then emphasized that the AfD holds libertarian views, and contrasted that with Hitler, who she noted had nationalized Germany’s economy.

“The biggest success after that terrible era in our history was to label Adolf Hitler as right and conservative. He was exactly the opposite. He wasn’t a conservative. He wasn’t a libertarian. He was a communist socialist guy,” Weidel claimed.

The conversation later took a turn away from politics, with Weidel asking Musk when he thought humans could live on Mars and whether he believed in God — questions he gave long and inconclusive replies to. "I am open to the idea of God," he said at one point.

In her concluding remarks, Weidel told Musk that his views are “visionary.”

Musk has previously used X to endorse AfD, and he authored an opinion article for the Welt am Sonntag newspaper, claiming Germany under center-left Chancellor Olaf Scholz is “teetering on the edge of economic and cultural collapse.” Germany's election is scheduled for Feb. 23.

The foray into politics by the Tesla and SpaceX chief executive is raising alarm across Europe.

In addition to endorsing the AfD, Musk has demanded the release of jailed U.K. anti-Islam extremist Tommy Robinson and called British Prime Minister Keir Starmer an evil tyrant who should be in prison.

The chat between Musk and Weidel was being monitored by watchdogs from the European Commission, which has accused X of violating the 27-nation bloc’s sweeping digital rulebook for cleaning up social media platforms and protecting internet users from online harm.

Commission officials say Musk has the right to express his views but that the rulebook — known as the Digital Services Act — is designed to rein in risks that platforms will be misused to amplify illegal content, including hate speech or election-related misinformation.

The commission has been investigating whether X complies. In preliminary findings issued last year, Brussels said the platform was in breach because its blue checkmarks originally intended as verification badges are deceptive, and because it falls short on transparency and accountability requirements. Regulators are still investigating other possible offenses.

Musk presented Weidel as “the leading candidate to run Germany” — but that isn't true.

Polls show that AfD has grown to be the second-most popular party in the country. The mainstream conservative Christian Democrats are favored to win the election, with the latest polling showing them at 31% support, compared with 20% for the AfD.

Still, the AfD has risen in popularity, as have parties with similar views across Europe, where a former taboo against far-right viewpoints is in decline.

AfD was formed in 2013 and has moved steadily to the right. Its platform initially centered on opposition to bailouts for struggling eurozone members, but its vehement opposition to then-Chancellor Angela Merkel’s decision to allow in large numbers of refugees and other migrants in 2015 established the party as a significant political force.

AfD's support has grown as a result of discontent with Scholz’s three-party coalition government. It's rising popularity also reflects a growing frustration among some with Germany’s involvement with the European Union and NATO which some view as eroding national sovereignty.

AP Business Writer Kelvin Chan in London contributed to this report.

Alice Weidel, parliamentary group leader, party chairwoman and candidate for chancellor of the AfD, prepares for a live X interview with U.S. billionaire Elon Musk in her office in the Jakob Kaiser House in Berlin, on Thursday, Jan. 9, 2025. (Kay Nietfeld/Pool Photo via AP)

FILE - Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk listens as Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump speaks at a campaign event at the Butler Farm Show, on Oct. 5, 2024, in Butler, Pa. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, File)

FILE - Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk gestures as he speaks at Life Center Church in Harrisburg, Pa., on Oct. 19, 2024. (Sean Simmers/The Patriot-News via AP, File)

Alice Weidel, parliamentary group leader, party chairwoman and candidate for chancellor of the AfD, prepares for a live X interview with U.S. billionaire Elon Musk in her office in the Jakob Kaiser House in Berlin, on Thursday, Jan. 9, 2025. (Kay Nietfeld/Pool Photo via AP)

FILE - Elon Musk jumps on the stage as Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump speaks during a campaign rally at the Butler Farm Show on Oct. 5, 2024, in Butler, Pa. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci, File)

FILE - Elon Musk speaks before Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump at a campaign rally at Madison Square Garden on Oct. 27, 2024, in New York. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci, File)