At 03:15 local time on New Year’s Day, a Ford pick-up truck rammed into crowds gather on Bourbon Street in the heart of New Orleans’ French Quarter.

CCTV footage shows a white, Ford F-150 Lightning vehicle driving onto the pavement to get around a police car before hitting pedestrians.

Police described the act as “very intentional”, adding that the attacker – identified as Shamsud-Din Jabbar – was “hell-bent on creating the carnage and the damage that he did”.

“This man was trying to run over as many people as he possibly could”, said New Orleans Police Chief Anne Kirkpatrick.

Jabbar was also armed and fired on law enforcement, injuring two officers. He was then killed by police gunfire.

Whit Davis, from Shreveport, Louisiana, told the BBC that he was held in a bar with a large group in the aftermath of the attack while police secured the scene.

When they left, they “were walking past dead and injured bodies all over the street”, he said.