Brother says New Orleans terror suspect converted to Islam long ago: ‘This is more some type of radicalization’
The brother of the New Orleans terror attack suspect said his actions were the result of “some type of radicalization” and did “not represent Islam.”
Just after 3 a.m. on New Year’s Day, police say 42-year-old Shamsud-Din Jabbar drove a truck into a New Orleans crowd before opening fire, killing at least 14 people and injuring dozens of others. Jabbar, who died in a shootout with police, had an ISIS flag in his truck. He also posted several Facebook videos hours before the attack in which he “pledged allegiance to ISIS.”
The FBI is now investigating the attack as “an act of terrorism.”
His brother, Abdur Jabbar, says they were both raised Christian but that the 42-year-old was “Muslim for most of his life.”
“What he did does not represent Islam,” the 24-year-old told The New York Times. “ This is more some type of radicalization, not religion.”
The brothers last spoke in mid-December. Jabbar did not mention anything about a trip to New Orleans, his younger brother said.
Chris Pousson, Jabbar’s former classmate who reconnected with him on Facebook in 2015, told the Times the attack came as a surprise.
“This is a complete 180 from the quiet, reserved person I knew,” he said.
“He wasn’t a troublemaker at all,” he added. “He made good grades and was always well-dressed in button-ups and polo shirts.”
Pousson said Jabbar often posted about his faith on Facebook.
“It was never Muslim extremist stuff, and he was never threatening any violence, but you could see that he had gotten really passionate,” Pousson told the Times.
Jabbar, who moved north of Houston a year ago, is a father to a six-year-old son and two daughters, 15 and 20. He and his first wife, Nakedra Charrlle Marsh, divorced in 2012, the Times reports. He re-married before separating from his second wife.
Dwayne Marsh, the now-husband of Jabbar’s ex-wife, told the Times that the 42-year-old was barred from seeing his two daughters after he began acting erratically in recent months.
Meanwhile, 70-year-old Marilyn Bradford, Jabbar’s former neighbor in Houston, told the Times he would often help her and offer to carry her groceries.
