RICHMOND, Va. — Hours after an attack left at least 15 people dead and dozens more injured in New Orleans, CBS 6 spoke with a Henrico County woman who is there with her family for the New Year.
With decades of ties to the Big Easy, Cindy Creasy of Glen Allen makes several trips a year to New Orleans including for this New Year's Eve with her family.
"It's emotional. I mean, you know, I love the city. I've always loved the city. I love sharing it with my boys," she said. "We watch the fireworks over the river off of the barges, and it's just gorgeous."
Creasy said her adult son went to Bourbon Street after the fireworks and left about 20 minutes before the attack happened.
"I am so incredibly thankful that he made it home," she said.
The FBI says Shamsud-Din Jabbar, 42, of Texas, was responsible. He was killed in a shootout with police.
The attack is being investigated as an act of terrorism. CBS 6 spoke to former FBI Agent John Wyman about the investigation.
Wyman worked over 20 years with the agency, primarily in counter terrorism, and now works in the private sector with Control Risks where he focuses on violence prevention, threat assessment and threat management.
Wyman said while he could not speculate on the specifics of the New Orleans attack, broadly speaking he said the investigation with follow two paths. The first is making sure there is no more active threat and gathering every detail about what took place.
"Was the offender acting alone? Were there conspirators involved? Was the person inspired, directed, enabled, either in-person or maybe online...the movements of the offender leading up to the incident and and trying to see whether there are other leads that need to be followed to ensure that there are no continued public safety risks," said Wyman.
He added wading through all that potential information can be challenging.
"You're trying to filter through what's what's accurate, what's not. How can you know what could be corroborated? And in trying to keep yourself in a position where you're really thinking holistically about the situation and filtering through before jumping to any sort of conclusions."
He said what usually is the toughest question to answer is why the attacker did what they did.
"How did they move from the idea of whatever the motivator was. It could be personal grievance, it could be an ideological reason, whatever. How do they move from that thought to action?" Wyman said. "Think of it as being similar to putting together a puzzle, right? You're pulling as many different pieces of that puzzle together so that you can create — as clear as possible — that picture. What we learned is that oftentimes there are changes in behaviors, there are things that are said over time. People have seen...those changes, they've observed them. They may not have recognized them for what they are. They may or may not have even reported them. And it goes to that kind of the puzzle piece, right? They may only have one small piece, and so, they're unable to put that into context. And that's what you're trying to do when you're looking back, to try and help determine that."
Wyman said the second part of the investigation will be looking at what lessons can be learned from the attack and how similar ones could be prevented in the future.
"It's always best to be doing that sort of work before an incident and trying to identify what those vulnerabilities are," he said. "After something occurs, it's always really important to take a good close look at what went well, what didn't go well, and how do we improve that in the future."
Wyman said that similar to how 9/11 led to the "See Something, Say Something" advice -- the FBI recently launched a website with information about how the public can help identify potential mass attackers.
"The earlier we can identify some of those concerning behaviors. Those warning signs get people to recognize and report it, the more likely it is that we're able to, you know, stop these events from occurring," he added. "We know from that research, that experience, people that plan these attacks, they take time to plan, prepare, consider, and along that way, there are observable signs and opportunities, therefore, for prevention."
Creasy is echoing that mantra in New Orleans.
"I think we all have to be aware of our surroundings and, like they always say, 'If you see something, say something.' And I think that's kind of what everyone's doing now," Creasy said.
She told CBS 6 she hasn't gone back to the scene, but still found herself close to the aftermath as the Airbnb investigators believe the suspect stayed at is four blocks from her.
"It's really quiet here today, really sad. New Orleans is such a great city," Creasy said. "Everybody was getting along wonderfully. You know nobody was acting crazy. And to hear this and to know that you're that vulnerable, it's a wake up call."
Creasy said that she hopes New Orleans isn't given a black eye over what happened and it can continue being the great city that she's known for decades.
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