New Orleans police force’s tough-on-crime transformation saved lives in New Year terror attack, says ex-city prosecutor

NEW Orleans police’s transformation in recent years helped prevent further bloodshed in Wednesday morning’s horror terror attack, a former assistant district attorney has claimed.

Rafael Goyeneche, a Louisiana native and president of the New Orleans Metropolitan Crime Commission (MCC), works opposite the Ceasars Superdome, just minutes from the French Quarter, where 14 people were killed in the early hours of 2025.

Shamsud Din Jabbar, a Texas-born US Army veteran, drove a rented pickup truck through New Year’s Eve revelers before he was killed by cops in a firefight.

But in the wake of the horror, cops have been praised for their bravery as they rushed to the scene to take down Jabbar.

Goyeneche, who served as Assistant District Attorney in Orleans Parish between 1980 and 1986, believes that the police’s quick actions saved many lives that night.

Video from Wednesday morning shows officers running directly towards the site of the terror attack on Canal and Bourbon Street, after receiving a notification.

Speaking to The U.S. Sun, Goyeneche said that the New Orleans Police Department (NOPD) had been transformed in recent years.

“The NOPD has been under a federal consent degree since 2013,” he said.

“Over the past 12 years, the police department has gone from one that was dysfunctional and ineffective in combating crime externally in the community, to an organization that has gone through a complete culture change.”

“What you saw manifested in that video was the training automatically kick in,” Goyeneche said.

“The police officers received notice, one person pointed their finger, and the entire group of officers immediately ran towards the scene of the crime.

“That’s what police departments are supposed to do. That’s what this police department has spent the past 12 years changing the culture of the department.

“And that was just an automatic response based on the training and the culture change that’s occurred in the city over the past 12 years.”

In the immediate wake of the attack, attention turned to how Shamsud Din Jabbar was able to get his pickup truck into the pedestrianized zone of the French Quarter.

The area is usually closed off using barriers and bollards to prevent vehicles from entering it.

But on New Year’s Eve, the barriers were under repair, and a police vehicle was instead left at the entrance.

Jabbar was able to drive around the obstacle and start his murderous rampage.

Goyeneche said the barriers were the responsibility of the city, not the police, but officers would be looking into how the sidewalks were left exposed.

“When those barriers were installed, there were no barriers placed on the sidewalks,” he said.

“So those that were in place were retracting barriers that were embedded in the streets, but the sidewalks were left vulnerable.”

But he highlighted again the unprecedented nature of such an attack in a city like New Orleans.

“We’ve never had an event like this occur here,” he said.

But increased law enforcement was in place around the Caesar’s Superdome, where the postponed Sugar Bowl college football playoff was taking place.

Goyeneche pointed to “an increased presence of law enforcement in and around the Superdome” in the wake of Wednesday’s horror.

He also pointed to the stepped-up “hardening measures” designed to block major thoroughfares as pedestrians walk to the stadium, just minutes from the French Quarter.

“My office is literally right across the street from the Superdome,” Goyeneche said.

“There’s a big celebration outside with music, I can hear it as if I was standing out there, it’s that loud.

“But it just doesn’t feel right yet.”

Although the threat of terror attacks is an ever-present one, Goyeneche added that he “never thought in a million years that that could happen here. And it did.”