STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
The man who drove a truck into a crowd in New Orleans had an ISIS flag on his vehicle. But that is only the beginning of what we know of the attacker who, police say, killed 15 people on New Year's morning before police shot him.
LEILA FADEL, HOST:
Shamsud-Din Jabbar was from the Houston area and drove a rented pick-up to New Orleans. So far as we know, his 42 years were filled with mostly ordinary life events.
INSKEEP: Lauren McGaughy with The Texas Newsroom has been working to learn more about him. Hi there, Lauren.
LAUREN MCGAUGHY, BYLINE: Good morning.
INSKEEP: So what have you found out about this man's life up until the moment when he attacked in New Orleans?
MCGAUGHY: We know that he started a handful of realty ventures in Texas and that he also had a realtor's license here. But state business records also show that two of his ventures recently went defunct just in the last few years. He also went through divorce proceedings here about five years ago. That's according to court records. And those show that he and his ex-wife were fighting over money and that they had a child together. He posted a YouTube video for one of these businesses, which has now been taken down. But in the video, Jabbar said he was born and raised in Beaumont, Texas, and spent time in the military.
INSKEEP: This underlines some of the frustrations at moments like this. You can see this person's difficulty in life - shortage of money, divorce, business failures. But, of course, these are things that happen to lots of people who do not respond in this way. What about his military service?
MCGAUGHY: A U.S. Army spokesman said that Jabbar served from 2007 to 2015 and then switched to the Reserves. He was a human resources and IT specialist, so he mostly worked in those roles. But he also did have one overseas deployment to Afghanistan for about a year in 2009. And when he left service, he held the rank of staff sergeant. We were also able to speak to a U.S. official, not able to speak on the record, who told NPR's Tom Bowman that Jabbar was honorably discharged, but that he did have disciplinary problems while in the military. And in that YouTube video I mentioned, Jabbar said his time in the military taught him to, quote, "take everything seriously, dotting I's and crossing T's to make sure that things go off without a hitch." We were able to confirm that, after the Army, Jabbar went to school at Georgia State University in Atlanta and graduated with a degree in computer information systems. And his resume also included a brief stint at the consulting firm Deloitte.
INSKEEP: And he ended up living where?
MCGAUGHY: So we were able to trace Jabbar's last known address to a neighborhood in northwest Houston. Our reporters from Houston Public Media said, by Wednesday afternoon, the place was just completely swarming with police investigating the attack, including FBI agents. The house he supposedly lived in was a small, white, kind of portable-style home with a big black gate. And there were a lot of cars outside the home, but our reporters were unable to speak with anyone inside. They did talk to some of Jabbar's neighbors. This is Francoise Venegas, who has lived in the area for a couple of years.
FRANCOISE VENEGAS: (Speaking Spanish).
MCGAUGHY: He said it's a Muslim community, and they don't generally have any problems there. Venegas said he's seen Jabbar around the neighborhood and that they've waved at each other, but that he didn't know him well. And just one more thing regarding the car that Jabbar was driving - Dan Patrick, the lieutenant governor of Texas, said that Jabbar rented it on December 30 and was seen driving around Houston in it before the attack.
INSKEEP: Where does the investigation go now?
MCGAUGHY: The FBI says it deployed specialty teams to the neighborhood where Jabbar lived. That's bomb technicians, counterterrorism investigators, crisis negotiators. But the bureau also asked people to just avoid the area. They even put some temporary flight restriction into place, and it indicated search warrants were being executed in multiple states.
INSKEEP: Lauren McGaughy of The Texas Newsroom, bringing us the results of a team of reporters working on this. Thanks so much.
MCGAUGHY: You're welcome. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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