The first details of the victims of the suspected terrorist attack on New Orleans’s nightlife center of Bourbon Street have begun to emerge as the city and the US absorbed the shocking news.
A fast-moving vehicle had ploughed into the crowds of New Year’s Eve revelers celebrating the first hours of 2025 early on Thursday morning. The gunman driving the vehicle also exchanged fire with police, before being shot dead himself.
The shocking attack left least 10 people dead and dozens more injured. The attacker has been named as Shamsud-Din Jabbar, a 42-year-old veteran from Texas.
Local media in New Orleans identified the first known fatality of the attack as a young woman called Nikyra Cheyenne Dedeaux who had traveled to New Orleans from nearby Gulfport in Mississippi with a cousin and a friend.
Melissa Dedeaux, the victim’s mother, told Nola.com: “She was the sweetest person. She would give you anything, anything.” She said her daughter had apparently been hit by the speeding truck after running at the sound of gunfire.
Nikyra Cheyenne Dedeaux graduated from Harrison Central high school in Gulfportin 2024 and was set to start a nursing program at Blue Cliff College later this month.
“Cheyenne was a very smart and outgoing girl,” her mother told Nola.com “She’s never gotten into any trouble.”