New Orleans suspect and driver of exploded Cybertruck served at same US military base – report
The suspect in the New Orleans attack and the driver of the Tesla Cybertruck that exploded in Las Vegas both reportedly spent time at the large military base formerly called Fort Bragg in North Carolina – but they did not appear to have overlapped there.
Matthew Livelsberger, who authorities said incurred a gunshot wound to the head before the Cybertruck he was driving exploded, had been a member of the elite US Army special forces. Shamsud-Din Jabbar, the suspect in the New Orleans attack, was a veteran of the US Army.
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The Sugar Bowl, the final game of the college football playoff quarterfinals, is underway. But before universities Notre Dame and the University of Georgia took the field there was a moment of silence for the people killed by a truck that rammed its way through a crowd of people on Bourbon Street.
Authorities in Las Vegas just released new details on the Tesla Cybertruck explosion including the route the suspected bomber took from Colorado to Las Vegas, the materials used to make the bomb and whether there is a connection to the New Orleans attack.
The suspected bomber rented the Cybertruck via the service Turo on 28 December in Denver and stopped at chargers in Colorado and others in Arizona and New Mexico before he reached Las Vegas. He made several stops before arriving at the Trump Tower on Wednesday morning. The bomb went off 17 seconds after the suspect parked, Kevin McMahill, sheriff of the Las Vegas metropolitan police department, told reporters on Thursday afternoon.
McMahill added that despite similarities between the Las Vegas and New Orleans attack suspects – such as their military backgrounds, use of Turo to rent their cars and both being deployed in Afghanistan in 2009 – there is no confirmed link between them.
While sifting through debris, law enforcement found fireworks, fuel accelerants and explosive targets that are available for consumer use as well as two legally purchased semiautomatic firearms, Kenny Cooper, special agent in charge of the FBI’s San Francisco field division, said during the press conference.
McMahill added that Elon Musk will be sending people to Las Vegas to try to retrieve any video recordings from inside the Cybertruck.
Residents lined up for hours in New Orleans to donate blood after the attack in which a terror suspect rammed a truck into a crowd of New Year’s revelers on Bourbon Street.
“This is powerful, to see this response,” Blood Center operations director Susan Neff told Nola.com. The organization had solicited donations amid the crisis and listed numerous facilities for donors to use in Louisiana and Mississippi.
During a press conference, Joe Biden reiterated FBI officials’ assertion that the suspect identified in the New Orleans attack appeared to have acted alone,