HARRIS COUNTY, Texas – As of 10 p.m. New Year’s Day, onlookers could see a group of law enforcement officials wearing tactical gear at a property in north Harris County surrounding a tactical vehicle. They’d been here for several hours.
It was an unusual scene for people who live near Hugh and T.C. Jester who were just trying to enjoy the holiday when they realized the tragedy which happened in New Orleans hit a little too close to home.
“I actually grew up in this area since I got to Houston, been here for about 10-12 years,” said Mohamed Osman. “Really just caught us by surprise to be honest. I saw it pop up on my Instagram feed where there’s an accident that happened in New Orleans.”
“It isn’t what I was expecting,” said Jonathan Huerta. “I think that just goes on to show that there’s anything that can happen in the world.”
The property address is listed in public records as a location where the suspect in the New Orleans attack, 42-year-old Shamsud-Din Jabbar, lived.
Earlier Wednesday, KPRC 2 witnessed a SWAT team pulling up to the property. Several people, including children, were seen being brought out of a nearby home.
Shortly afterwards, a man could be seen walking out of another home with his hands up. He appeared to be taken into custody, although the FBI says no arrests have been made at the location.
“I was just hanging at home with my daughters, and I heard helicopters,” said Jonathan Cartagena. “We go to my in-laws quite often, so we drive by this road every day and it’s crazy to think that he was in there just plotting all of this and people don’t know about it.”
Around 9 p.m. Wednesday, the FBI released an updated statement saying they were continuing a court-authorized search of the location:
FBI Houston and the Harris County Sheriff’s Office are continuing a court-authorized search of a location near the intersection of Hugh Road and Crescent Peak Drive. At this time, no arrests have been made and FBI personnel will be at the scene for several more hours. We are asking members of the public to continue to avoid the area and a temporary flight restriction has been implemented. Throughout this operation, we have deployed specialized teams including our FBI SWAT team, Crisis Negotiators, Special Agent Bomb Technicians, Tactical Operations Center, Evidence Response Team, and a group of counterterrorism investigators. We are grateful for the substantial assistance provided by our partners at the Harris County Sheriff’s Office, the Houston Police Department, and Homeland Security Investigations (HSI). Since this is an ongoing investigation, we are unable to provide any more information at this time. However, we encourage anyone with information related to the New Orleans attack to submit tips online at www.fbi.gov/bourbonstreetattack or by calling 1-800-CALL-FBI (1-800-225-5324).
