New Orleans: A group of victims of the New Orleans New Year’s Day terror attack have filed suit against city officials and contractors, saying they failed to protect revellers from a “preventable” truck ramming incident that killed 14 people and injured dozens.
The 21 plaintiffs range from Louisiana residents to visitors from Alabama, Florida, Texas and other states. Lead plaintiff Antoinette Klima shared a 12-year-old son with Reggie Hunter, a 37-year-old Baton Rouge man who died in the attack.
She said it was devastating that Hunter would no longer be there for all their son’s future milestones.
“I’ve survived Hurricane Katrina. I’ve lost loved ones before,” Klima said. “And still nothing compares to the pain of losing Reggie and having to break the news to our son.” Klima and the other victims are represented by New Orleans-based law firm of Maples & Connick and Chicago-based Romanucci & Blandin.
Their suit, filed Wednesday in Orleans Parish Civil District Court, echoed the allegations of another lawsuit filed in the same court earlier this month by six victims and the father of a man who was killed in the attack on Bourbon Street, the city’s famous and festive thoroughfare in the historic French Quarter.
Both lawsuits name the city and two contractors as defendants and said city officials were repeatedly warned of Bourbon Street’s vulnerability to a vehicle-ramming attack.
A contractor even presented the city with a scenario in April 2024 showing an F-150 pickup truck turning onto Bourbon Street and running into pedestrians, which is what the Islamic State group-inspired attacker Shamsud-Din Jabbar did around 3.15 am on New Year’s Day.
Police fatally shot Jabbar, 42, in an exchange of gunfire at the scene of the deadly crash.
The lawsuits have pointed out that the city was in the process of replacing a faulty bollard system of protective columns designed to block vehicle traffic in the run-up to the Super Bowl to be held February 9 in New Orleans.
“The city of New Orleans so recklessly and outrageously mismanaged the timing of the bollard replacement system projects with a singular focus on the Super Bowl preparedness that it left the obvious and significant target night of New Year’s and the Sugar Bowl badly exposed,” said Michael Cerasa, a Romanucci & Blandin partner.
The suit also names as plaintiffs the New Orleans Police Department and the French Quarter Management District, a state-created body overseeing the city’s historic French Quarter whose tasks include improving public safety.
The French Quarter Management District “negligently and recklessly” replaced the bollard system during New Year’s and the Sugar Bowl, the lawsuit said.
The New Orleans Police Department “failed to follow its own security measures” at Bourbon Street by deploying a police cruiser as a makeshift barrier instead of the larger truck called for in the department’s security plan, among other “woefully inadequate, incompetent and incomplete preparations,” the lawsuit said. It noted that the attacker was able to drive his rented F-150 truck around the smaller police car.
The lawsuit states that city contractor Mott MacDonald implemented “poorly designed and manufactured” security barrier systems that broke down and required replacement and that general contractor Hard Rock Construction erred by attempting to replace the bollards during one of the “busiest nights of the year.” Hard Rock Construction did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The city and the other defendants all declined to comment, citing pending litigation.
Piecing together responsibility for the tragedy would be a “jigsaw puzzle,” the attorneys said, adding more defendants may join.
The lawsuit recounted how victims had to crawl to safety as they struggled with life-threatening traumatic injuries. Many are now fearful of crowded public spaces and are “suffering from severe post-traumatic stress” it said.
“I have been experiencing a lot of nightmares that have caused me to go endless nights without sleep and continue to prevent me from attending public places during busy hours,” Daniel Ortega, an Alabama resident and plaintiff in the lawsuit, said in a written statement.
Romanucci & Blandin helped the family of George Floyd obtain a USD 27 million settlement from Minneapolis and its police department after Floyd’s murder. The firm also secured a USD 98 million verdict for the family of Botham Jean, a man fatally shot by a Dallas police officer.
Attorney Antonio Romanucci did not say how much the New Orleans attack victims would seek in damages, explaining that “the losses here are immeasurable.
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