Shamsud-Din Jabbar wore Meta smart glasses while carried out his terrorist attack during the early hours of New Year’s Day in New Orleans, killing 14 and wounding 35 others, the FBI says.
“Meta glasses appear to look like regular glasses, but they allow a user to record videos and [take] photos hand-free. They also allow the user to potentially livestream their video,” FBI Special Agent in Charge (SAC) Lyonel Myrthil explained during a Sunday press conference.
“Jabbar was wearing a pair of Meta glasses when he conducted the attack on Bourbon Street, but he did not activate the glasses to livestream his actions that day,” Myrthil added.
Breitbart News has reported extensively on Zuckerberg’s partnership with Ray-Ban to produce smart glasses with creepy privacy implications — like the ability to record and stream anything the wearer looks at. Meta has confirmed it will use video and pictures captured by its smart glasses to train AI. According to law enforcement officials, Jabbar used his smart glasses to record a previous visit to his target.
Agent Myrthil revealed that Jabbar had also visited New Orleans in October, and used the Meta glasses to film a bicycle tour of the French Quarter “as he plotted this hideous attack.”
“Jabbar made at least two trips to New Orleans in the months prior to the attack. One in October, and the other, a month later, in November of 2024,” Myrthil revealed, adding that the terrorist “stayed at a rental home in New Orleans, beginning October 30, 2024.”
“During that time, Jabbar, using Meta glasses, recorded a video as he rode through the French Quarter on a bicycle,” Myrthil explained.
The FBI agent then showed video footage Jabbar had captured with his Meta glasses during his bicycle ride through the French Quarter in October.
“As we continue to learn more about that trip, we ask anyone who may have seen or interacted with him to contact us,” Myrthil said.
The FBI also shard video footage “showing Jabbar placing IEDs on Bourbon Street.”
Providing a timeline of the events that transpired, Myrthil explained that “Jabbar is estimated to have entered Louisiana on December 31, 2024 at approximately 2:30 p.m.”
The terrorist then “rented a vehicle that was seen again in Gonzales, Louisiana, around 9:00 p.m. on December 31,” the FBI said, adding that “by 10:00 p.m. home camera footage shows Jabbar unloading the white pickup truck in New Orleans” outside a rental home on Mandeville Street.
“Just under three hours later, at 12:41 a.m. on New Year’s morning, Jabbar parked the truck and walked to Royal and Governor Nicholls Street,” Myrthil said, adding that “Jabbar placed the first IED in the cooler at Bourbon and St. Peters Street at 1:53 a.m.”
“Someone on Bourbon Street, who we have no reason to believe was involved, dragged the cooler a block to Bourbon and Orleans, where our team found it after the attack,” Myrthil continued, adding, “Jabbar placed a second IED in a bucket-type cooler at 2:20 a.m. on Bourbon and Toulouse Streets.”
Then at 3:15 a.m. “Jabbar used his pickup truck as a lethal weapon before crashing into the construction equipment and was stopped by the brave men and women of NOPD,” the FBI agent said.
“Shortly after 5:00 a.m. a fire was reported at the rental home in the Mandeville Street location in New Orleans, and the New Orleans Fire Department found explosive devices on scene after entering the home,” Myrthil added.
Myrthil went on to say, “We strongly believe Jabbar was solely responsible for the fire on the Mandeville Street [home] in New Orleans,” noting, “We determined that he set the fire before heading to Bourbon Street.”
Alana Mastrangelo is a reporter for Breitbart News. You can follow her on Facebook and X at @ARmastrangelo, and on Instagram.
