Today is Wednesday, January 1, 2025. The New Year got off to a characteristic violent start when we all somberly learned that a man drove a pickup truck into a crowd of revelers on Bourbon Street, in New Orleans, killing at least 15 – it was originally reported that 10 people were killed – individuals and injuring dozens more. This is the first day of 2025 and we already have our first mass killing. What an appalling turn of events which clearly illustrate our major problem with not lashing out at others for either political reasons or for personal reasons.

This particular incident is now being termed as an act of terrorism because the FBI has identified the suspect as a 42-year-old Texas man and Army veteran who had an ISIS flag in his vehicle at the time of the deadly attack. This terrible attack is covered in an online CNN update by a slew of journalists which is entitled “At least 15 killed in New Orleans after driver intentionally rams into crowd on Bourbon Street.”

Regarding the suspect, multiple officials said the man made a series of video recordings before today’s senseless assault where he said he joined ISIS.

The attack in the popular French Quarter occurred less than a mile from where the Sugar Bowl was supposed to have been hosted today. Now the annual college football game has been postponed for 24 hours for public safety reasons, the bowl’s CEO said.

Authorities in the meantime have been interviewing people who knew the suspected New Orleans attacker, but thus far have not made any arrests or identified any additional suspects, a law enforcement source familiar with the ongoing investigation told CNN.

In another online CNN article on the tragedy, evidence has emerged that the suspect discussed plans to murder his family and join ISIS in recordings that he left. The article is entitled “New Orleans attack suspect discussed plans to kill his family and join ISIS in chilling recordings. Here’s what we know,” written by Casey Tolan, Curt Devine, John Miller, and Paul P. Murphy.

In that series of videos, the 42-year-old attacker in today’s deadly incident in the Big Easy discussed plans to kill his family and having dreams that helped inspire him to join ISIS, according to multiple officials briefed on the investigation.

The radicalized murderer served in Afghanistan and was a U.S. citizen, contrary to what the president-elect said about the status of this individual – he inaccurately declared that the attack was executed by an immigrant – and in those videos made reference to his divorce and how he had at first planned to gather his family for a “celebration” with the intention of killing them, two officials who had been briefed on the recordings said.

The videos, which CNN has not reviewed, appear to have been recorded while he was driving at night, the officials said, although the exact timing is unclear.

The suspect – whom I will not identify – was killed while exchanging fire with police after ramming the truck through the crowd in the early hours of New Year’s Day. He also had potential improvised explosive devices (IEDs) and the ISIS flag in the truck he drove, according to local and federal authorities.

The suspect served in the Army for more than a decade, an Army spokesperson told CNN today. He served as a Human Resources specialist and information technology specialist on active duty between March 2007 and January 2015, and deployed to Afghanistan once from February 2009 to January 2010, the spokesperson said.

The assailant was born in Beaumont, Texas, he said in a 2020 YouTube video entitled “Personal introduction,” in which he depicted himself as a professional real estate agent based in Houston.

This madman had a turbulent personal life in that he was divorced from two of his ex-wives, court documents show. His first wife sued him in 2012 over child support soon after he filed for divorce, and the court issued orders for him to pay amounts that increased over the years as his income increased. The case was dismissed in 2022.

In recent years, the suspect appears to have struggled financially. In a January 2022 email filed as part of his divorce case, he wrote that he could not afford a payment on his house, which he said was more than $27,000 past due and “in danger of foreclosure” if his divorce settlement was further delayed.

Maybe his personal and financial situation caused him to experience a mental break which resulted in this tragedy on New Year’s Day. We won’t know since the assailant was killed by police.

One interesting aspect of this incident is that the suspect rented the truck he used on the car rental website Turo, which lets owners rent their vehicles to other people. This service became known to me for the first time when our car was slightly damaged this past July by a young woman who was driving a car rented through Turo. Here the former Army veteran rented a Ford F-150 Lightning electric truck from the truck’s owner on Turo.

This was truly a vile, ugly incident, and I’m afraid this surge in violent incidents such as these will not diminish once Chump takes office a second disastrous time. In fact, expect many more of these chaotic, violent attacks on innocent Americans to sweep over the land, as anger and frustration build in the American populace over the dire mistake committed at the voting booth this past November.

As for now, we should all remember the 15 individuals who were senselessly killed so early in the New Year by this ISIS convert who chose martyrdom over life.

And so it went!