New Orleans attack: An Army veteran’s path to radicalization
By Kristie Rieken | Associated Press
BEAUMONT, Texas — Shamsud-Din Jabbar grew up in Texas, joined the U.S. Army and eventually settled in Houston, where he spun up a real estate business and made $120,000 a year for one of the world’s largest consulting firms.
But the 42-year-old U.S. citizen, who authorities say plowed a rented truck through New Year’s revelers in New Orleans before being shot and killed by police, also faced pressures. He finalized a third divorce in 2022, saying in filings he couldn’t pay his mortgage and his business was losing money.
On Thursday, authorities and relatives were still piecing together why Jabbar barreled through a crowd in a Ford F-150 on Bourbon Street, killing 14 revelers and injuring at least 30 others. Officials said the attack was inspired by the Islamic State group, making it one of the deadliest IS-inspired assaults on U.S. soil in years.
FBI officials said Jabbar posted five videos to his Facebook account in the hours before the attack in which he aligned himself with IS. Authorities also found an Islamic State flag on the truck used in the attack early Wednesday.
“It’s completely contradictory to who he was and how his family and his friends know him,” Abdur-Rahim Jabbar, one of his brothers, told The Associated Press on Thursday at his home in Beaumont, about 90 miles outside Houston.
The 24-year-old said his older brother had increasingly isolated himself from family and friends in the last few years but he hadn’t seen any signs of radicalization when they talked. He said it had been a few months since he had seen his brother in-person and a few weeks since they talked on the phone.
“Nothing about his demeanor seemed to be off. He didn’t seem to be angry or anything like that. He was just his calm, well-mannered, well-tempered self,” the younger brother said.
Law enforcement officials said after driving into the Bourbon Street crowd and crashing the truck, Jabbar exited the car wearing a ballistic vest and helmet and fired at police, injuring at least two before he was shot and killed by officers returning fire.
Army, court and other public records piece together a picture of a man who had been stationed or lived in multiple states including North Carolina, Texas, Georgia and Alaska, had been married multiple times and seemed to be experiencing financial difficulties as he tried to adjust to civilian life.
Jabbar joined the Army in 2007, serving on active duty in human resources and information technology and deploying to Afghanistan from 2009 to 2010, the service said. He transferred to the Army Reserve in 2015 and left in 2020 with the rank of staff sergeant.
A spokesperson for Georgia State University confirmed Jabbar attended the school from 2015-2017 and graduated with a bachelor’s degree in computer information systems in 2017.
He had been married at least three times over the last two decades and had at least three children who were mentioned in divorce and custody agreements. His two most recent marriages, in Georgia and Texas, each lasted about three years, according to court documents.
Dwayne Marsh, who is married to one of Jabbar’s ex-wives, told The New York Times that Jabbar had been acting erratically in recent months. Marsh said he and his wife had stopped allowing the two daughters she shared with Jabbar to spend time with him.
The AP left a message at a number listed for Marsh Thursday. Messages were also left for Jabbar’s two other ex-wives at their numbers or with their attorneys.
The AP also left messages for Jabbar’s mother that were not returned as of Thursday afternoon. Abdur-Rahim Jabbar said their father had declined to speak with reporters.
Divorce records also show Jabbar faced a deteriorating financial situation in January 2022. Jabbar said he was $27,000 behind on house payments and wanted to quickly finalize the divorce.
“I have exhausted all means of bringing the loan current other than a loan modification, leaving us no alternative but to sell the house or allow it to go into foreclosure,” he wrote in a January 2022 email to his now-ex-wife’s attorney.
His businesses were struggling, too. One business, Blue Meadow Properties LLC, lost about $28,000 in 2021. Two other businesses he started, Jabbar Real Estate Holdings LLC and BDQ L3C, weren’t worth anything. He had also accumulated $16,000 in credit card debt because of expenses like attorneys fees, according to the email.
Court documents show he was making about $10,000 a month doing business development and other work for the consulting firm Deloitte in 2022.
On Wednesday, police blocked access to a Houston neighborhood where Jabbar’s last address was listed, a small white mobile home in a gated community where ducks and goats were roaming in the grass. On Thursday, the FBI said it had finished a search of the area but did not release more details.
Despite the tumult indicated by court documents, Abdur-Rahim Jabbar said his brother hadn’t shown any outward signs of distress or anger about his relationships.
“I think he blamed himself more than anything for his divorces. … And he never was bitter towards his ex-wives,” the younger Jabbar said.
Childhood friend and fellow veteran Chris Pousson reconnected with Jabbar on Facebook around 2009, before the two lost touch again around 2019. From his home in Beaumont, he said his biggest takeaway from periodic check-ins with Jabbar were positive messages and praise for his faith, but nothing that raised any flags.
“I never saw this coming. And in the military, actually, I did anti-terrorism in the military. And if any red flags would have popped off, I would have caught them and I would have contacted the proper authorities,” he said.
“But he didn’t give anything to me that would have suggested that he is capable of doing what happened.”
Associated Press reporters Jamie Stengle in Dallas, Claudia Lauer in Philadelphia, Tara Copp in Washington, Kate Brumback in Atlanta, Michael Phillis in St. Louis, and Christopher L. Keller in Albuquerque, New Mexico, contributed to this report.