The last comparable event I went to was a wine walk in California. A medium town turned two streets in their downtown area that met at a right angle into a pedestrian only zone. Every single entrance to the area was blocked by concrete barriers like these (at a minimum, there were also more impressive barricades):
The only gaps were narrow, just a bit wider than a wheelchair, and usually had another barricade a few feet past them, meaning that to enter the area you had to go past the first barrier, then make a 90 degree turn to walk to an entrance past the 2nd barrier.
I even commented to my wife at the time that this must be in response to ramming attacks.
The reason is that they don’t want to admit to negligent behavior.
In my experience from SoCal, over the last few years completely blocking off zones for these types of events has become pretty standard. Even in towns much smaller and more remote than New Orleans. And we just saw the attack in Germany that should have reminded authorities why that is.
In the meantime, I heard on my local news that part of north Houston was being made a no-fly zone (yeah, they mean business!) and a second person was taken into custody. This footage, which was probably taken by drone, showed a man, probably no older than 30, wearing nothing but shorts, walking backwards down a driveway with his hand up towards a camouflaged tank with plenty of armed officers aboard.
Flightradar24.com showed a helicopter earlier that was circling a neighborhood in Bellaire, a southwestern suburb of Houston, and probably originating in the suspect’s neighborhood. It’s gone as I write this (11:20PM Central time).
The people who were thought to be placing bombs on the street, which included at least two women, turned out on closer examination to not be doing anything of the sort.
This story does go into some detail about the suspect’s adult life, and it did include two divorces, the second one in 2022.
The footage had initially raised suspicions about their potential link to the attack, which killed 15 people and injured several others. However, following an in-depth review, authorities determined the four people had no connection to the crime.
I also saw that his ex wife’s dad says he has been getting crazier and crazier lately, and converted to Islam just a few years ago.
In a way, it makes a certain twisted kind of sense; radical forms of Islam are very patriarchal, and may offer the same comfort to a man who feels “emasculated” by society/a divorce as the whole “red pill” movement does. In fact, I think there are some big “red pill” creators who blend Islam and misogyny.
So I’m wondering where this guy got a ISIS flag from.
A person can be “trained” online and (presumably) download an ISIS flag/logo to print and put on the wall behind them for videos. But this guy presumably had a cloth flag. Can’t download one of those.
Does ISIS mail them out? Would a tshirt printing shop or website do a size XXXL black tshirt with truly whatever design you want, or would someone who ordered that end up on the FBI’s radar?
Of course, all this presumes it really was an ISIS flag. The only video I’ve seen has the flag on the back of the stationary truck covered in a gray coat. This schmuck’s four bomb-planting accomplices turned out not to be so, showing once again that early reports should be taken with a grain of salt.
In the interest of accuracy, this is a very bad comparison.
The police and FBI communicated, and the news media related, very different statements in these two contexts.
On the ISIS flag, they first said that there was a “black” flag on the car, and later, that it was an ISIS flag.
On the “accomplices”, they said something fairly different: that they had footage of four people who showed up near where they found IEDs, who they wanted to question. And that’s all true; they did question those people, and clear them of suspicion.
Your overall point about being cautious about the early reporting is fair enough, but we can have different levels of confidence in different things we think we know.
I don’t see why it would be. Amazon doesn’t have them but that’s probably because of policy, not law. If I were to buy one, I’d be afraid of an FBI honey trap. Additionally, I can’t read Arabic. The Etsy ones could say “I’m a douche bag” for all I know.
One of the first pictures that came out showed a furled black flag with what appeared to be some writing that matched the ISIS flag. That was the immediate internet reaction. It turned out to be correct.
Parades have been attacked before. The November 2021 Waukesha Christmas parade is an example. Parades can be hard to defend because the route can be several miles long.
I know the upcoming Super Bowl makes New Orleans a major target.
Sending best wishes for the survivors and the families of people harmed.
But I’m a little surprised they haven’t tried to find a way to track who buys them. I wouldn’t be shocked if Amazon, Etsy, etc. agreed to cooperate, and it’s only unconstitutional if you get caught.
It’s perfectly legal for merchants to sell ISIS flags, and it’s perfectly legal for the FBI to work with merchants to track who’s buying them. There would be limits on what they can do with that information, but I’m sure they could find ways to make it useful.
I also asked about the link.