A New Year's Eve celebration in New Orleans, Louisiana, was marred in the early hours of Wednesday morning by a deadly vehicular attack that killed and injured dozens of innocent revelers.

Arguably making matters worse was an initial declaration by a lead FBI agent in the city that the incident was "not a terrorist event," Breitbart reported.

That egregious claim, which was contradicted mere hours later by statements from FBI headquarters and the president, not to mention immediately known evidence that pointed to terrorism, further enraged many Americans who already hold the federal law enforcement agency in utter contempt and disregard.

NYE celebration attacked

Shortly after 3 a.m. on Wednesday, a man drove a pickup truck at high speed through a crowd of people celebrating the New Year in New Orleans' French Quarter, killing at least 10 and wounding dozens more before he himself was killed in a brief shootout with responding police officers.

Almost immediately, reports indicated that the deceased suspect had been armed with multiple firearms and explosive devices in addition to a highly recognizable black Islamic State terror group flag that was mounted on the back of the truck.

Yet, during an initial press conference just a few hours after the horrific attack, a young FBI agent who spoke on behalf of the Bureau's New Orleans field office was quick to insist that the attack was "not a terrorist event," even as it bore all of the hallmarks of exactly that.

Agent says attack was not terrorism

During the Wednesday morning press conference, FBI Assistant Special Agent in Charge Alethea Duncan announced that the Bureau would be taking over the lead role in investigating the deadly incident that had just occurred.

"This is not a terrorist event," Duncan asserted. "What it is right now is there improvised explosive devices that was found, and we are working on confirming if this is a viable device or not."

Mixed messages was it a terrorist attack or not pic.twitter.com/rs7QZbHJ90

— Karli Bonne’ 🇺🇸 (@KarluskaP) January 1, 2025

FBI and Biden contradict agent's terrorism claim

The immediate dismissal of terrorism in the attack by ASAC Duncan was contradicted just two hours later by a statement posted to the FBI's official X account that provided a minimalist description of the "situation in New Orleans."

That statement said, "The FBI is the lead investigative agency, and we are working with our partners to investigate this as an act of terrorism."

Duncan's non-terrorism claim was further contradicted a few more hours later by a White House statement from President Joe Biden about the "horrific incident" that had occurred in New Orleans, in which he similarly noted, "The FBI is taking the lead in the investigation and is investigating this incident as an act of terrorism."

Biden expressed his gratitude for the quick response from local law enforcement and said, "I have directed my team to ensure every resource is available as federal, state, and local law enforcement work assiduously to get to the bottom of what happened as quickly as possible and to ensure that there is no remaining threat of any kind."

He further stated that he would continue to be briefed and share more information later, then added, "In the meantime, my heart goes out to the victims and their families who were simply trying to celebrate the holiday. There is no justification for violence of any kind, and we will not tolerate any attack on any of our nation’s communities."