Vehicle plows into crowd on Bourbon St., with 14 fatalities

Mr. Sparkle said

I'm sure there are many of us that have a connection to one or more of the victims - I worked with the father of Tiger Bech, the young man from Lafayette who played football at STM and Princeton - I knew him as a toddler. My college kid was uptown and fortunately declined an invite to go to Rick's at 2:45am - several buddies of his (U. of Alabama DEKEs) ended up sheltering in place at the strip joint and were finally ushered out by law enforcement who told them "eyes forward do not look around" - of course they all did and saw all the carnage. Just a horrific event. I don't even know how to thinkg about it yet.

Click to expand...

My son, 21, and his buddies also declined an invite to that area. They were on Magazine St. most of the evening and he decided to head back to his apartment in Baton Rouge around 2:00 am. instead of going to the FQ. He called me to talk on his way home which he typically does when it’s very late and he was telling me about running into his ex and that she was the one who invited him to Bourbon. Thankfully, he somehow convinced her and her girlfriends to also make their way back to Baton Rouge (they’re all LSU students).

When I woke up to this news yesterday, I was filled with gratefulness and extreme sadness at the same time. My son knows a couple of the victims and his mom and I will be flying down tonight to spend some time with him. This is awful and I’m sick of all the hatred and pointless loss of life. Sickening.