1 killed, 5 hurt in shooting at manufacturing facility in Ohio; police investigating motive
(NEW ALBANY, Ohio) — Police are looking for a motive after a man allegedly killed one person and injured five others in a workplace shooting at an Ohio manufacturing facility, officials said.
Officers responded to an active shooter report at a New Albany facility run by KDC/One, a beauty products manufacturer, around 10:30 p.m. Tuesday, New Albany police said.
One victim was found dead inside the building and five others were hospitalized in unknown conditions, police said.
About 150 employees were safely evacuated, police said.
The suspect, identified as employee Bruce Reginald Foster III, fled the scene just before police arrived, New Albany Police Chief Greg Jones said.
Foster, 28, was taken into custody Wednesday morning at a home in Columbus, Jones said.
A motive remains under investigation, Jones said at a news conference Wednesday.
Authorities interviewed the evacuated employees and “nobody had reported that there was any conflict or that [Foster] was in trouble at work,” Jones said.
The chief described the victims as Foster’s co-workers and said they likely knew each other.
New Albany is a safe community, but “any community in America can fall victim to random workplace violence,” New Albany Mayor Sloan Spalding said at the news conference.
Foster legally bought the gun used in the shooting in September 2024, authorities noted.
(NEW ORLEANS) — The suspect in the truck attack that killed 14 and injured dozens in New Orleans on New Year’s had traveled to Egypt in 2023 for about a month, his half-brother told ABC News.
Shamsud-Din Jabbar, a 42-year-old Army veteran and U.S.-born citizen from Texas, went to Egypt alone and told his family he was going “because it was cheap and beautiful,” his half-brother, 24-year-old Abdur Jabbar, said.
Shamsud-Din Jabbar’s foreign travel is a part of the ongoing investigation, law enforcement officials told ABC News.
Investigators are working to determine what he did during his travel in Egypt, why he went and who he interacted with while there, multiple sources said. Critical to the probe is whether he had been radicalized prior to the travel or if the travel marked the start of his radicalization.
“This next most important phase of the investigation is to find out how that radicalization happened and if it happened on that trip,” Orleans Parish District Attorney Jason Williams told ABC News.
Early on New Year’s Day, Shamsud-Din Jabbar drove a pickup truck onto a sidewalk and around a parked police car serving as a barricade to plow into pedestrians over a three-block stretch on Bourbon Street, police said. He then exited the damaged vehicle armed with an assault rifle and opened fire on police officers, law enforcement said. Officers returned fire, killing him.
Shamsud-Din Jabbar posted several videos online hours before the attack “proclaiming his support for ISIS” and mentioning he joined ISIS before this summer, according to the FBI.
Officials said the first 24 hours after the ramming attack were occupied by a feverish effort to determine whether there were additional suspects on the loose or if Shamsud-Din Jabbar worked with accomplices. Since Thursday, investigators have been focused on piecing together his path to radicalization and the events that led up to his decision to attack Bourbon Street.
The FBI and Department of Homeland Security has issued a joint intelligence bulletin warning the nation’s 18,000 law-enforcement agencies about potential copycats, ABC News learned. The bulletin was sent out of an abundance of caution to sensitize law enforcement around the country to be on the lookout for any activity pointing to the use of vehicles as a method to inflict mass casualties, sources told ABC News.
“We advise federal, state, local, tribal, and territorial government and law enforcement officials and private sector security partners to remain vigilant of potential copycat or retaliatory attacks inspired by this attack and other recent, lethal vehicle-ramming incidents across the globe,” the bulletin said.
The bulletin notes that ISIS has been promoting the use of vehicles as a terrorism weapon since around 2014.
ISIS has ramped up calls for its supporters to launch low-tech, mass casualty ramming attacks in recent months, sources told ABC News, especially since the most recent Israel-Hamas conflict began in October 2023.
The bulletin stated that Shamsud-Din Jabbar was inspired by ISIS but that there remains no evidence of any co-conspirators. A senior law-enforcement official told ABC News that there is so far no sign of ISIS claiming responsibility for the New Orleans attack.
“Law enforcement should be aware that in many cases attackers have conducted vehicle-ramming attacks with secondary weapons and may continue the attack with edged weapons, firearms, or IEDs after the vehicle has stopped,” the bulletin said. The tactic could be “attractive” for foreign terrorist organizations and other actors due to its low complexity threshold, the warning said.
An intelligence bulletin from the New York Police Department obtained by ABC News indicated that ISIS supporters did celebrate the attack online. Violent extremists, the bulletin said, “continue to view densely populated walkways, parades, mass gatherings and other outdoor events along streets, especially during holidays, as vulnerable targets of opportunity.”
“This enduring threat underscores the criticality of pre-staged blocker cars and the deployment of other effectively configured countermeasures including heavy block, barriers and bollards,” it added.
Surveillance footage showed Shamsud-Din Jabbar placing two improvised explosive devices in coolers in the Bourbon Street area, Raia said. He had a remote detonator in the truck to set off the two devices, President Joe Biden said. Both devices were rendered safe, officials said.
Bomb-making materials have been recovered at Shamsud-Din Jabbar’s Houston home, sources confirmed to ABC News. The items found were also referred to as “precursor chemicals” by agents in the field, sources said.
Law enforcement cleared and reopened Bourbon Street on Thursday as the investigation continued. New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell said authorities had the “confidence” to reopen the area to the public ahead of the Sugar Bowl on Thursday afternoon, which was initially scheduled for Wednesday but postponed in the wake of the attack.
“I want to reassure the public that the city of New Orleans is not only ready for game day today, but we’re ready to continue to host large-scale events in our city,” she said. “Our hearts and prayers continue to go out to the victims’ families,” Cantrell added.
President Biden and first lady Jill Biden will head to New Orleans on Monday to meet with the families and community members, the White House said. Biden said Friday that he’s spoken with victims’ families.
There is no apparent direct connection between the New Orleans attack and Wednesday’s Tesla Cybertruck explosion outside the Trump International Hotel Las Vegas, which is also being investigated as a possible act of terror, the FBI said Thursday.
(WESTFORD, Mass.) — A Democratic member of Congress has become the latest victim of increased threats against federal lawmakers in the last two weeks.
Rep. Lori Trahan of Massachusetts said Saturday that her family and home received a bomb threat. No one was harmed and the Westford Police Department, U.S. Capitol Police and the Massachusetts State Police are all investigating the threat, she said.
“It’s a good time to say the obvious: threats of violence and intimidation have no place in our country,” Trahan said in a statement.
The threat against Trahan came a week after several Democratic members received similar threats against their families.
Reps. Joe Courtney, Jahana Hayes, Jim Himes and John Larson, who all represent districts in Connecticut, said their homes were targeted on Thanksgiving. Connecticut Sen. Chris Murphy, Rhode Island Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse and Rep. Seth Magaziner, also of Rhode Island, said they were targets of bomb threats last week
No bombs were found and none of the elected officials nor their families were hurt, authorities said.
The investigations into the threats are ongoing.
Some of President-elect Trump’s cabinet selections were also targeted with threats last week.
Investigators are looking into bomb threats sent to Rep. Elise Stefanik, Trump’s pick for U.S. ambassador to the United Nations; Brooke Rollins, Trump’s pick for agriculture secretary; Lee Zeldin, the former congressman Trump has tapped to lead the EPA; and Pete Hegseth, Trump’s pick for defense secretary.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., and President Joe Biden condemned last week’s threats.
“House Democrats will not be deterred or intimidated from serving the people by violent threats,” Jeffries said in a statement last week.
(NEW ORLEANS) — The man suspected of plowing a truck into a crowd on Bourbon Street in New Orleans on New Year’s, killing 14 people and injuring 35 others, pledged his support to ISIS, the FBI said Thursday.
The suspect, Shamsud-Din Jabbar, an Army veteran and U.S.-born citizen who lived in Houston, also died in the early Wednesday attack.
After barreling through the crowd over a three-block stretch, the 42-year-old Jabbar allegedly got out of the truck wielding an assault rifle and opened fire on police officers, officials said. Officers returned fire, killing him, police said. Two police officers were injured, authorities said.
Jabbar is believed to have acted alone, authorities said Thursday, calling the attack a premeditated “act of terrorism.”
Jabbar drove from Houston to New Orleans on New Year’s Eve and posted several videos online “proclaiming his support for ISIS,” and mentioning he joined ISIS before this summer, Christopher Raia of the FBI said Thursday.
“There were five videos posted on Jabbar’s Facebook account, which are time stamped beginning at 1:29 a.m. and the last at 3:02 a.m.,” Raia said. “In the first video, Jabbar explains he originally planned to harm his family and friends, but was concerned the news headlines would not focus on the ‘war between the believers and the disbelievers.'”
An ISIS flag was recovered from the back of the truck, Raia said.
Surveillance footage showed Jabbar placing two improvised explosive devices in coolers in the Bourbon Street area, Raia said. Those were the only devices recovered and both were rendered safe, he said.
Jabbar’s half-brother, 24-year-old Abdur Jabbar, told ABC News on Thursday that he’s still in shock over the carnage in New Orleans.
He described Shamsud-Din Jabbar as loving, humble and “one of the nicest guys you’d ever meet — would not hurt a fly.”
He also said his brother was “isolated.”
Abdur Jabbar said his brother’s actions “do not represent the Muslim faith,” and he said he wants people to know his “brother is a human being, even after this.”
Shamsud-Din Jabbar had a checkered marital history punctuated by multiple divorces and financial difficulty, according to court records reviewed by ABC News.
In a YouTube video posted in 2020, he said he was born and raised in Beaumont, Texas, and spent a decade working in the U.S. military before becoming a realtor in the Houston area. His years in the military were spent working as a human resources and IT specialist, he said in the video, which has since been removed from YouTube.
Shamsud-Din Jabbar worked for Deloitte, serving in a staff-level role since 2021, a spokesperson for the firm confirmed to ABC News.
“Like everyone, we are outraged by this shameful and senseless act of violence and are doing all we can to assist authorities in their investigation,” the spokesperson said in a statement.
Shamsud-Din Jabbar served in human resources and information technology roles in the Army from 2007 to 2015, during which he deployed to Afghanistan from February 2009 to January 2010, an Army spokesperson confirmed to ABC News. He continued as an IT specialist in the Army Reserve from 2015 to 2020, the spokesperson said. His listed jobs were not direct combat roles.
He is believed to have been discharged honorably from the Army, though investigators are still looking into his military record, the FBI said.
The truck used in the attack, a Ford F-150 Lightning, was rented through the Turo app — a car-sharing company, according to Rodrigo Diaz, the owner of the truck.
Diaz told ABC News he rented the truck to an individual through the app and is currently talking to the FBI.
Diaz’s wife, Dora Diaz, told ABC News that she and her husband are devastated by the incident.
“We remain committed to maintaining the highest standards in risk management, thanks to our world-class trust and safety technologies and teams that include experienced former law enforcement professionals,” a Turo spokesperson said in a statement on Wednesday.
ABC News’ Matt Seyler and Jared Kofsky contributed to this report.