A terrorist attack at 3:15 a.m. on New Year’s Day exposed to the world the deadly consequences of the dysfunctional leadership of New Orleans. The Crescent City has been controlled by the Democratic Party since 1872, when the last Republican Mayor left office.
The current Democrat Mayor, LaToya Cantrell, is thankfully in the final year of her second term in office. She has been enmeshed in controversy from the beginning of her tenure as Mayor.
While she survived a recall effort, she is currently embroiled in a federal investigation involving local businessmen, who allegedly gave her gifts in exchange for the firing of a city employee.
She is also implicated in the indictment of her former bodyguard, Jeffrey Vappie, a former policeman, who has been charged with wire fraud and making false statements. The indictment alleges that Cantrell began having an affair with Vappie, then married, while he was “on duty” guarding her.
It is also alleged that Cantrell and Vappie spent personal time together at the city owned Upper Pontalba apartment, located adjacent to Jackson Square in the French Quarter. In previous mayoral administrations, this apartment was strictly used to accommodate dignitaries visiting New Orleans. The historic apartment was reportedly utilized by Cantrell as a personal residence. It took a prolonged battle with the New Orleans City Council for Cantrell to finally surrender the keys to the apartment.
When Cantrell was not spending time with her bodyguard and living in the city-owned apartment, she was enjoying lavish international trips, often accompanied by Officer Vappie. In fact, they travelled together on 14 out-of-town trips, often to far-flung destinations such as Qatar, France, United Arab Emirates, Kenya and South Korea.
In 2022, Cantrell became entangled in a controversy regarding her lavish travel expenses, such as flying first class. Ultimately, she was forced to reimburse the citizens $30,000 for improper expenses charged to the taxpayers. Yet, despite the questionable optics, Cantrell did not stop travelling. In the 16-month period ending in May of 2024, the Mayor spent at least 103 days traveling outside of New Orleans.
Why was Cantrell traveling so often? Regularly, she attended conferences organized by the Aspen Institute, “a global nonprofit organization that works to create a more just, equitable, and free society.” She also was a frequent attendee of Bloomberg Media events focused on “climate change.”
Last October, Cantrell attended a Bloomberg CityLab summit in Mexico City. The summit focused on issues such as “environmental challenges that cities across the globe face,” and “climate resilience” to help New Orleans become “more sustainable” in the future.
If only Mayor Cantrell had been worried about the safety of New Orleans citizens and visitors as much as “climate resilience.” She would have known that the bollard security system on Bourbon Street had been broken for years and that the security measure of using one police car to block the intersection of Bourbon and Canal Streets was insufficient to thwart a terrorist, Shamsud-Din Jabbar, “hellbent” on killing innocent people.
Jabbar, with an ISIS flag on the back of his rented pickup truck, avoided the police car and used the sidewalk to enter Bourbon Street. Thereafter, he turned his truck into a deadly weapon, killing 14 innocent people, from 18 to 63 years of age, and wounding dozens of others.
Thankfully, the two bombs he had previously placed in the French Quarter did not detonate. Otherwise, many more innocent people would have been killed. After traveling several blocks because no bollards were operational, Jabbar eventually crashed his truck into a light tower parked in the middle of Bourbon Street. According to New Orleans businessman Sidney Torres, “If that light tower wouldn’t have been put there for more visibility on Bourbon Street, that truck would have killed a lot more people.”
Jabbar exited the truck firing his weapon and wounded two New Orleans police officers before ultimately dying in the shootout. The police officers exhibited tremendous bravery in exchanging gunfire with the maniacal terrorist, but this should have never happened.
Bourbon Street, one of the most heavily trafficked pedestrian thoroughfares in the country, was not adequately protected. The Cantrell administration had promised to fix the broken bollards before the Super Bowl in February, but inadequate precautions were taken for the massive Sugar Bowl and New Year’s Eve crowds.
At the very least, dump trucks should have been placed at each entrance to Bourbon Street, preventing any type of vehicle from entering the roadway and threatening pedestrians. Otherwise, city officials could have used sidewalk obstacles, known as “Archer barriers,” that were purchased in 2017.
This critical security measure was used previously to protect citizens during parades, and they were available on New Year’s Eve, but the New Orleans Police Chief, Anne Kirkpatrick, admitted she did not know about them prior to the terrorist attack.
Due to this negligence, Kirkpatrick should immediately resign, or be fired, but the only person who could remove her is Cantrell, her boss, and no one should expect her to exercise good judgment. Undoubtedly, Cantrell hired Kirkpatrick because her experience included serving as an FBI instructor on topics such as “bias and diversity.”
The terrorist attack occurred one day after another building collapsed on Magazine Street in New Orleans. This was the third building to collapse in the last few weeks, perfectly symbolizing the Cantrell administration, which has been criticized for improper and ineffective building inspections. In 2019, the Hard Rock Hotel collapsed on Canal Street, killing three construction workers.
A Magazine Street restaurant owner, Eric Cook, who was negatively impacted by the nearby building collapse, thoroughly summarized the continuing problems in New Orleans. He told New Orleans TV station WDSU, “There’s no blame, so there’s no reason for anyone to care, and that’s the sad thing, is that we don’t hold people accountable for doing wrong in New Orleans. And if we don’t start doing something soon, then maybe we will just become Cleveland, who knows?” Unfortunately, the world now knows.
Jeff Crouere is a native New Orleanian and his award-winning program, “Ringside Politics,” airs Saturdays from Noon until 1 p.m. CT nationally on Real America’s Voice TV Network & AmericasVoice.News and weekdays from 7-9 a.m. & 6-7 p.m. CT on WGSO 990-AM & Wgso.com. He is a political columnist, the author of America’s Last Chance and provides regular commentaries on the Jeff Crouere YouTube channel and on Crouere.net. For more information, email him at jcrouere@gmail.com
