The brother of the New Orleans terror attack suspect said his actions were the result of “some type of radicalization” and did “not represent Islam.”
Just after 3 a.m. on New Year’s Day, police say 42-year-old Shamsud-Din Jabbar drove a truck into a New Orleans crowd before opening fire, killing at least 14 people and injuring dozens of others. Jabbar, who died in a shootout with police, had an ISIS flag on his truck. He also posted several Facebook videos hours before the attack in which he “pledged allegiance to ISIS.”
The FBI is now investigating the attack as “an act of terrorism.”
His brother, Abdur Jabbar, says they were both raised Christian but that the 42-year-old was “Muslim for most of his life.”
“What he did does not represent Islam,” the 24-year-old told The New York Times. “ This is more some type of radicalization, not religion.”
The brothers last spoke in mid-December. Jabbar did not mention anything about a trip to New Orleans, his younger brother said.
Chris Pousson, Jabbar’s former classmate who reconnected with him on Facebook in 2015, told the Times the attack came as a surprise.
“This is a complete 180 from the quiet, reserved person I knew,” he said.
“He wasn’t a troublemaker at all,” he added. “He made good grades and was always well-dressed in button-ups and polo shirts.”
Pousson said Jabbar often posted about his faith on Facebook.
“It was never Muslim extremist stuff, and he was never threatening any violence, but you could see that he had gotten really passionate,” Pousson told the Times.
Jabbar, who moved north of Houston a year ago, is a father to a six-year-old son and two daughters, 15 and 20. He and his first wife, Nakedra Charrlle Marsh, divorced in 2012, the Times reports. He re-married before separating from his second wife.
Dwayne Marsh, the now-husband of Jabbar’s ex-wife, told the Times that the 42-year-old was barred from seeing his two daughters after he began acting erratically in recent months.
Meanwhile, 70-year-old Marilyn Bradford, Jabbar’s former neighbor in Houston, told the Times he would often help her and offer to carry her groceries.
“He was no terrorist to me,” Bradford said.
Jabbar lived below Bradford in a Houston apartment building from 2021 to 2023. Bradford said he gave her a dryer and cleaning supplies before moving out.
“I said, ‘Oh, you are giving me something to remember you by?’ He laughed, like he always did,” she told the Times. “He was an outcast person. I was the only one he really talked to. I used to refer to him as my buddy.”
Jabbar was “inspired by ISIS” and had a “desire to kill,” President Joe Biden said in an address on Wednesday.
“I know while this person committed a terrible assault on the city, the spirit of our New Orleans will never, never, never be defeated. It always will shine forth,” Biden said.
The conditions of the more than 30 people injured are not immediately clear.
Meanwhile, four of the 14 people killed have been identified: Martin ‘Tiger’ Bech, 28; Ni’Kyra Cheyenne Dedeaux, 18; Reggie Hunter, 37; and Matthew Tenedorio, 25.
Michelle Bech, mother to the 28-year-old victim, told NBC News she said goodbye to her son before he died at a local hospital.
“He was living his best life, and he knew it,” she said. “It just leaves a huge void in our life.”
