FBI, Meta questioned over New Orleans terror attack
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Illustration: Brendan Lynch/Axios. Photos: Emily Kask/AFP via Getty Images and courtesy of the FBI
Congressional lawmakers are making inquiries into how the FBI and Meta responded to the New Orleans terror attack on New Year's Day,
Why it matters: Lawmakers are questioning the whereabouts of the FBI's top agent in New Orleans when the attack occurred, and whether Meta could have done more to raise awareness over videos the suspect had posted to Facebook before carrying out his plans.
The big picture: Sens. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and Ron Johnson (R-Wisconsin), who chair the Senate Judiciary Committee and the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, respectively, raised their questions in a series of letters Wednesday, the AP first reported. Read the letters.
- City and state investigations into the attack response are underway as leaders look to understand whether New Orleans' safety measures that night followed best practices and how they can be improved in the future.
Catch up quick: The attack occurred in the early morning hours of New Year's Day when the suspect, Shamsud-Din Jabbar, drove a rented truck through a crowded Bourbon Street.
- The attack killed 14 innocent bystanders plus Jabbar, who died in a shootout with police. Nearly 60 other people were also injured.
Zoom in: Grassley and Johnson are looking into why FBI New Orleans special agent-in-charge Lyonel Myrthil was vacationing with family during the holiday, when the city was also set to host the Allstate Sugar Bowl.
- "These are major public events that a SAC should be present for," Grassley and Johnson wrote. The inquiries also question why the FBI initially muddled communication around the event.
- When Mayor LaToya Cantrell called the incident a "terrorist attack" early on New Year's Day, FBI agent Alethea Duncan, who represented the agency in Myrthil's initial absence, rejected that terminology, despite the fact that Jabbar had a ISIS flag visible in the bed of his truck.
- The FBI began using that language later that day, and Fox News reported that Duncan has since been temporarily reassigned.
As for Meta, Grassley and Johnson are asking CEO Mark Zuckerberg if Jabbar ever made any posts that were flagged or removed.
- The senators also question Facebook's moderation methods, and when Meta became aware that Jabbar used a pair of its glasses to scout out parts of Bourbon Street in the months before the attack.
Between the lines: FBI officials have maintained that it's incredibly difficult to identify lone actors who commit acts of terror before they actually occur.
- Though officials have laid out months worth of clues, including Facebook video posts and visits to New Orleans, experts say it's exceptionally hard to connect those individual signs unless someone is already under surveillance.
- Still, machine learning and AI may help investigators get closer in the future to recognizing more of those signs before attacks happen.
Go deeper
- The victims of the Bourbon Street attack
- How to help after the Bourbon Street attack
- New Orleans attack injured 57 people, FBI says
- NOPD releases bodycam footage of New Year's Day attack
- City, state leaders seek answers after Bourbon Street attack
- Why "lone actors" are so hard to find, and how we might get closer
- How the New Year's attacker got through New Orleans security barriers