Don’t Let Terror Shut America Down

Despite the devastating terror attack that killed at least 10 people on Bourbon Street in New Orleans in the early morning hours of New Year’s Day, the Sugar Bowl college football playoff game will continue tonight in the city’s Superdome, less than 2 miles from the carnage.

This is the correct approach. Responses to terror or violent attacks need to be based on the specifics of the incident, but the default should always be to remain open. A nation, any nation, must have the capacity to mourn and move forward simultaneously.

The question isn’t whether proceeding with scheduled events is disrespectful to those who have been directly impacted by terror. In some ways, it obviously is; the Sugar Bowl is only a college football game. But the decision should be based less on emotion and more on the level of ongoing risk, and the available security, for those who are asked to continue with their lives.

First, can the situation legitimately be described as no longer posing a continuing danger? In 2015 in Paris, a wave of terror attacks over one long night resulted in 130 dead.  The entire country was placed under what amounted to a 3-month lockdown, with most public events cancelled. That made some sense, given the sophistication and planning behind that attack, and the fact that a concert hall and sporting venue were targeted. As of this writing, though, New Orleans and federal officials have been insistent that they believe the immediate threat has passed.

In a statement, the FBI identified the suspect as 42-year-old Shamsud Din-Jabbar, a U.S. citizen from Texas. He was killed at the scene by law-enforcement officers. An ISIS flag had been located in the vehicle, the FBI said, and law enforcement was working to determine the suspect’s affiliations. While it remains unclear what additional information might be available to the FBI, the unified messaging suggests they are not overly concerned about continuing risk.

Second, if a city chooses to close down or delay events, does it have clear standards for what will allow it to reopen? This was the dilemma after the Boston Marathon bombings on a Monday in 2013, when the two terrorists initially evaded law enforcement.When the Tsarnaev brothers, who had carried out the attack, killed an MIT police officer while making their escape, the governor asked residents of nearby towns to remain indoors while the search proceeded. The governor’s request, accepted by the scared public rather than enforced, ceased to be sustainable as the search dragged on for an entire day. European cities such as Brussels have faced the same issue after major attacks. It is easy to close down but harder to have metrics for what is perfectly safe, since that is an impossible standard.

Third, can public-safety resources and planning can be redeployed or reassessed in light of the terror attack without forcing the city to a standstill? A preplanned sports event, such as the Sugar Bowl, already has in place safety and security protocols that can be amended in just a few hours to allow for more resources from other jurisdictions and changes to vehicle access. Indeed, just a day after Boston’s lockdown, the Red Sox played at Fenway with a ramped up public-safety presence. The Hall of Fame slugger David Ortiz memorably welcomed the anxious crowd by saying, “This is our fucking city.” He was reflecting a sense that terrorists elevate their cause if they can impact entire populations, and the best response can be an insistent normalcy.

There is no perfect answer to the challenge posed by an attack, but asking the public to stay put can be unnecessary. In Maine in 2023, after the tragic shooting of 18 victims by a lone gunman, the town of Lewiston and areas across southern Maine went into shelter-in-place mode for several days until he was found dead from suicide. Fear and isolation may have been unnecessarily amplified by the lockdown, originally issued for an indefinite period.

After the terror attacks of September 11, 2001, President George W. Bush tried to calm a grieving nation by telling citizens to still “go shopping for their families.” The quote has been mocked as both tone deaf (the term “consumer patriotism” was coined) and insensitive, but the for is often forgotten in the retelling. No matter how terrible an attack, we still need to be there for one another—whether gathering or grieving or just watching a football game.