During the Sugar Bowl, attendees initiated chants of ‘USA’ following the national anthem as a heartfelt acknowledgment to the victims of the recent terror incident in New Orleans.
The New Orleans community is still grappling with the aftermath of the tragic occurrence on Bourbon Street, where Shamsud-Din Jabbar, 42, drove a truck into a festive crowd in the early hours of Wednesday, as they were welcoming the New Year.
The senseless act of violence claimed the lives of 15 and left 35 injured, before Jabbar was killed by police in a resulting shootout.
In the wake of the distressing incident at Bourbon Street, the College Football Playoff quarterfinal game between No 2 Georgia and No 7 Notre Dame, originally scheduled for 8:45pm ET on New Year’s Day at the Caesars Superdome in New Orleans, was rescheduled for 4pm on Thursday to allow for proper considerations.
Before the delayed game got underway, both sets of teams, coaches and fans – as well as emotional New Orleans mayor Latoya Cantrell – stopped for a rendition of the Star Spangled Banner as well as a poignant moment of silence.
And at the end of the national anthem, ‘USA’ chants could be heard reverberating around Caesars Superdome.
Fans in attendance at the Sugar Bowl broke out into passionate chants of ‘USA’ on Thursday
New Orleans mayor Latoya Cantrell was also left visibly emotional during a moment of silence
A SWAT team, as well as bomb-sniffing dogs and their handlers, are out in force on Thursday around the Superdome, where hundreds more police officers lined the surrounding streets ahead of the college football blockbuster.
Police dogs were seen sniffing vehicles entering the stadium’s garage in addition to the personal belongings of anyone entering the stadium through the rigorous security checks.
Despite a lockdown Wednesday morning, the Superdome doors opened at 1pm local time, with pre-game festivities beginning at 2:15 CST. Kickoff is scheduled for 3pm in New Orleans, 4pm EST.
Bourbon Street, the site of the attack, has re-opened ahead of the game, New Orleans mayor LaToya Cantrell told reporters.
However, on Wednesday night Louisiana attorney general Liz Murrill called for a further delay to the Sugar Bowl, insisting to NBC it’s ‘premature to be having a football game when we still had bodies on the ground.’
Meanwhile, scores of Fighting Irish and Bulldogs fans already abandoned New Orleans for their return flights home. As a result, ticket prices on the secondary market have plummeted for Thursday’s afternoon kickoff.
‘We can’t get new flights,’ said Lisa Borrelli, a 34-year-old Philadelphia resident who came to New Orleans with her fiancé, a 2011 Notre Dame graduate.
Postponing the game ‘was absolutely the right call,’ she said. ‘I completely understand.’
She said they paid more than $250 per ticket and hadn’t bothered listing them for resale yet because prices were so low: ‘Of course we’re disappointed to miss it and to lose so much money on it, but at the end of the day it doesn’t matter. We’re fortunate enough that we’ll be fine.’
The Sugar Bowl went ahead at Caesars Superdome on Thursday after being delayed 24 hours due to the New Orleans terror attacks
Thousands are still at the college football game despite many being forced to sell their tickets
Some seats on StubHub were as low as $11 after the tragedy as fans rushed to unload tickets
Some seats on StubHub were as low as $11 after Wednesday’s tragedy as scores of fans unloaded tickets on the secondary market. Even the top seats were selling for $446 on StubHub.
Earlier Wednesday, field-level seats were going for as much as $1,700 on Ticketmaster before officials opted to postpone the game in the wake of the terror attack.
The pivotal quarterfinal matchup was postponed after Jabbar, a US citizen and 13-year Army veteran from Texas, rammed his vehicle into the crowd on Bourbon Street during New Year’s festivities.
He allegedly had an ISIS flag attached to his truck, while investigators also found what appeared to be improvised explosives at the crash site that did not detonate.
Authorities speaking at Thursday’s press conference in New Orleans downplayed any potential links between the Bourbon Street attack and another at Donald Trump’s hotel in Las Vegas, where 37-year-old Green Beret Matthew Livelsberger detonated an explosive in a rented truck, killing himself.
New Orleans Police Chief Anne Kirkpatrick told NBC that ‘hundreds of officers’ would be lining the city streets prior to the rescheduled Sugar Bowl: ‘We are staffing up at the same level, if not more so, than what we were preparing for the Super Bowl [in February].’
St John’s Parish Sheriff’s Office SWAT Unit were seen at Caesars Superdome before the game
New Orleans Police Chief Anne Kirkpatrick said ‘hundreds’ of cops would be lining the streets
Police and political leaders vowed to capture any accomplices or related crimes, with the FBI convinced Jabbar was not solely responsible.
There had been speculation that Wednesday’s terror attack at Donald Trump’s Las Vegas hotel may be connected. Livelsberger is said to have driven a rented Tesla Cybertruck armed with a bomb to the hotel entrance, where he was killed by the blast.
Both Jabbar and Livelsberger spent time at North Carolina’s Fort Bragg (now Fort Liberty), although it remains unclear if the two had any contact with each other prior to their respective attacks on New Year’s Day.
New Orleans police found weapons and a potential explosive device in Jabbar’s vehicle, while two potential explosive devices were found in the French Quarter and rendered safe, the FBI said.
‘We do not believe that Jabbar was solely responsible. We are aggressively running down every lead, including those of his known associates,’ FBI Assistant Special Agent in Charge Alethea Duncan told reporters, adding that investigators were looking into a ‘range of suspects.’
