“The tragedy happened less than a kilometer from where we are now,” Beata Moskal-Słaniewska, the mayor of Świdnica, who was spending her vacation in New Orleans in the United States, wrote on Facebook. On Wednesday, January 1, in the morning local time, a driver drove into a crowd at high speed on Bourbon Street. He killed at least 10 people and sent 35 to hospital.
According to witnesses quoted by CBS, the driver drove into the crowd at high speed. The incident took place around 3:15 a.m. local time (10 a.m. Polish time) on one of the main streets in New Orleans – Bourbon Street.
As witnesses indicated, the driver later got out of the car and started shooting. Police at the scene returned fire. The FBI said in a statement that the perpetrator of the attack was dead and the incident was being investigated as a “terrorist act.”
“There were a lot of police guarding the street”
The mayor of Świdnica, Beata Moskal-Słaniewska, spent her vacation in New Orleans. On Wednesday after the attack, she announced on Facebook that everything was fine and she was safe.
“We cannot free ourselves from the shock. New Orleans was supposed to be a beautiful memory. It will be a wound in our hearts,” she wrote. In the post, she explained that she spent New Year's Eve at 300 Bourbon Street and returned to the hotel around 2 a.m. “The tragedy happened less than a kilometer from where we are now, over an hour later. There were a lot of people having fun there. A wonderful atmosphere,” she emphasized. She added that “the street was protected by a lot of police.”
“There were barriers and partitions. We felt that our safety was guaranteed,” we read.
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