NOLA’s Top Cop Vows to Keep Sugar Bowl Safe: ‘Absolutely Hundreds of Officers’ Will Be ‘Lining Our Streets’
New Orleans Police Superintendent Anne Kirkpatrick reassured football fans that the Sugar Bowl would be safe after a suspected terror attack in the French Quarter, saying that “absolutely hundreds of officers” from local, state, and federal agencies would be on patrol in the area.
Kirkpatrick appeared on NBC’s Today Show Thursday morning to speak about the latest developments in the wake of a deadly incident in which a man drove a pickup truck into a crowd of people celebrating the New Year. The suspect, 42-year-old Shamsud-Din Bahar Jabbar, was a U.S. citizen and Army veteran who lived in Texas. He was killed after a shootout with police. At least 15 people were killed and dozens more were wounded. The FBI has said the attack is being investigated as terrorism.
The Sugar Bowl game between Georgia and Notre Dame was delayed for one day due to security concerns, rescheduled for 3 pm CT Thursday. Kirkpatrick reassured fans “that walk [to the stadium] will be safe.”
She added:
We are not alone. We are in partnership with many other partners, both local and federal, military, police, and so forth, will be here. And so we are going to have absolutely hundreds of officers and staff lining our streets, lining Bourbon Street, lining the French Quarter. So we are staffing up at the same level, if not more so, than what we were preparing for Super Bowl.
Watch the clip above via NBC.
