Louisiana bishop responds to New Year’s Day attack in New Orleans
[Episcopal News Service] Louisiana Bishop Shannon Rogers Duckworth issued a statement hours after the early morning attack in New Orleans’ French Quarter Jan. 1 killed 15 people and injured dozens more.
A man, later identified as Shamsud-Din Bahar Jabbar, sped a truck along Bourbon Street and around a parked police vehicle before crashing into a crowd of people. He then fired at police and was killed by them in return gunfire.
Jabbar was a 42-year-old U.S. citizen from Texas who served in Afghanistan with the U.S. Army and later served with the Army Reserve.
Duckworth’s statement follows:
As we all wake to the news of the mass casualty in New Orleans, our hearts break, and our minds reel in the face of such senseless loss. There are so few words and so many more questions. Our thoughts turn to the families, the friends, the members of our community, our visitors, and the members of law enforcement and the medical community whose lives will be forever altered by this incomprehensible and heinous act.
In this time of uncertainty, I ask that you do what we do best as the church gathered…that we draw together in a spirit of prayer, justice, and peace.
I ask our churches to please add those affected and their families to your prayers this Sunday. I ask our friends in the wider church to keep us close to your prayers. For, as this season of Christmas and the coming Day of Epiphany remind us, the light of Jesus will always shine in the darkness and the darkness will not overcome it.
+Shannon
