Video shows New Year’s Eve revelers narrowly escaping the path of a speeding pickup truck in New Orleans

NEW ORLEANS – Bourbon Street surveillance footage shared with Fox News Digital shows terror suspect Shamsud-Din Jabbar driving his electric Ford F-150 Lightning pickup toward a crowd of New Year’s revelers who narrowly escape the speeding vehicle around 10 p.m. 1 January.

Authorities fatally shot Jabbar after he drove his vehicle through the crowd, killing 14 people and opening fire on police in what officials described as a terrorist attack.

“A 500-pound vehicle traveling at high speed in an urban area is absolutely devastating. And it’s very clear that the trend is that this is becoming — this preferred tactic among terrorists globally, because recently we’ve seen a proliferation of these,” Paul Mauro, Fox News contributor and former NYPD inspector, told Fox News Digital.

Mauro added that police departments across the country have changed their standard operating procedures because “it’s no longer enough to wait for the feds to do their counterterrorism.”

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Mauro added that “electric cars are generally so quiet” that Jabbar may have made the conscious decision to rent an electric vehicle with the aim of surprising more victims.

A manager at Krystal, a fast-food restaurant on Bourbon Street, shared the surveillance video with Fox Digital and said the New Year’s celebration had gone relatively smoothly in the French Quarter compared to previous years. Visitors had fun but weren’t too rambunctious, he recalled.

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Several business employees located near the Bourbon Street entrance told Fox News Digital that authorities installed temporary barriers to block traffic at certain street entrances in the French Quarter around Christmas time as the city planned to repair and upgrade its permanent barriers.

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But the barrier located at the intersection of Canal and Bourbon streets was not erected on New Year’s Eve, meaning vehicles could drive over the flat barricade and onto Bourbon Street from Canal Street. A video shows Jabbar driving the rented pickup truck off Canal Street and around a blockade of police cars at the Bourbon Street entrance before plowing into revelers.

“We have to accept that they made mistakes.”

– Paul Mauro

“The lesson is that even if you take prophylactic steps, you can’t ensure a very large event 100%, and we just have to accept that. That being said… we have to accept that they made mistakes.” Mauro said. “You have to ask yourself: If you have New Orleans New Year’s — which I’ve actually been to, and it’s a zoo, you get tons of people — then you have the Sugar Bowl, then you have the Super Bowl, then you have Mardis Gras , who made the decision to decide to remove the barriers they had to upgrade?”

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Kevin Scott, a chef at Bourbon Street restaurant Felix’s, told Fox News Digital that he was working New Year’s Eve before the attack and left shortly before Jabbar drove his truck into the party. Scott described the crowd as similar to the crowd he could see on Mardi Gras.

The next day, he heard several eyewitness accounts from people who said that “bodies were everywhere” and that people were “screaming and yelling and just running for their lives.”

“It’s a tragedy in New Orleans.”

– Kevin Scott

“When we get into the French Quarter, it’s a lot different now… It feels different,” Scott said, adding that he felt “very surprised” by the number of people who were back on Bourbon Street Thursday afternoon, after officials reopened the area.

Scott broke down as he said his heart goes out to the victims’ families.

“I just wish we could all come together and just … be a better place, a better world,” he said.

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FBI Deputy Director Christopher Raia said Thursday that authorities believe Jabbar was motivated by ISIS and acted alone. Officials also found two improvised explosive devices (IEDs) at different locations in the French Quarter after the terror attack. They were placed in coolers.

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Before his rampage in New Orleans, Jabbar posted several videos on Facebook declaring his support for the Islamic State (ISIS)the FBI said at a news conference Thursday.

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“In the first video, Jabbar explains that he only planned to harm his family and friends, but was concerned that the news headlines would not focus on the ‘war between the believers and the unbelievers,'” Raia said.

Fox News Digital’s Christina Coulter and Louis Casiano contributed to this report.