The creators of steel, mobile 700lb barriers designed to prevent intentional vehicle rammings that New Orleans’ local government bought in late 2017 but left in storage on the night of the deadly Bourbon Street truck attack have provided the city with plans to safeguard Carnival parades as well as prominent landmarks.
But it remains to be seen whether New Orleans’ ultimately adopt those plans, said the Meridian Rapid Defense Group chief executive officer, Peter Whitford, whose group manufactures the so-called Archer barriers that have generated much civic discussion in the wake of an Islamic State terror group-inspired attack that killed 14 people and injured nearly 60 more.
“We are experts in mobile barriers; we are experts in [high-profile events that could be targeted by terrorists]; and we are providing that expertise to the city at no cost,” Whitford told the Guardian. “It will be the city’s choice.”
Spokespeople for New Orleans mayor LaToya Cantrell’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment about Whitford’s representations, though it had previously indicated Meridian was the only security equipment company with which the city had held talks.
The city’s police department said it was “not able to comment … on safety and security assets or plans” due to investigations into the attack as well as pending litigation accusing the local government of failing to adequately protect New Year’s Day revelers on Bourbon Street – some who were planning to attend a college football playoff quarterfinal at New Orleans’ Caesars Superdome.
Whitford’s remarks about the vehicle safety mitigation plan (VSMP) Meridian had extended to New Orleans came as the FBI warned on Monday of potential “copycat or retaliatory attacks” following the terror on the city’s most famous street during the early hours of 1 January. They also followed the city’s hiring of former New York and Los Angeles police chief William Bratton to review as well as fortify its security plans against future threats while preparing to host the NFL’s Super Bowl on 9 February and the annual celebration of Carnival culminating in Mardi Gras on 4 March.
Whitford, as he tells it, traveled to New Orleans with colleagues from Meridian on his own volition in the wake of the attack. He said he has personally seen that local police had three so-called tow bars as well as one hauler – or pieces of equipment which can essentially be fashioned into a hand truck for individuals to move Archer barriers in and out of position quickly.
At least when he laid eyes on them, those accessories were at a police station one block over from where the former US military veteran who carried out the New Year’s Day attack crashed and was shot dead by police without being able to detonate homemade bombs he had planted further up Bourbon Street in advance.
Yet the Guardian interviewed multiple sources in New Orleans’ public safety and emergency management establishment who said they had never used or become familiar with such equipment. Those same sources said the barriers fell out of favor with higher-ups altogether because they were perceived to be too cumbersome to deploy and pick back up.
Citing aerial photos from the New Orleans property assessor’s website and images on Google Street View, the Louisiana Illuminator reported Wednesday that the city used its initial supply of Archers to harden Bourbon Street until 2023. That was four years into the administration of Cantrell, whose predecessor, Mitch Landrieu, had acquired them as part of a $40m public safety package in response to deadly car rammings aimed at crowds in Nice, Berlin, London, New York and Barcelona.
In September 2023, Cantrell appointed a new police superintendent, Anne Kirkpatrick. The Archer barriers were then not used to fortify Bourbon Street for her first Mardi Gras in charge, in her fifth month in office, according to the Illuminator’s review of aerial property assessor’s website images.
Kirkpatrick memorably said the day after the Bourbon Street attack that she was not aware the city even had Archer barriers in its public safety toolkit.
Cantrell’s director of homeland and emergency preparedness, Collin Arnold, recently appeared on WWL Radio and essentially confirmed her administration had come to view the Archers as burdensome. He said “moving them takes significant effort that must be of a couple of days before – and then once they’re deployed, moving them takes usually two to three people”.
Only various videos online prove Meridian’s assertions that a single person of any stature can deploy eight Archers in less than 10 minutes using proper trailers (which city records show were also bought), field tow bars and haulers. One of the most striking clips depicts a woman with gray hair as well as a long-sleeved shirt effortlessly pushing and pulling an Archer barrier by herself.
Nonetheless, the Archers were one of three types of barriers meant to stop motorists from purposely targeting crowds that were missing in action the day of the attack on Bourbon Street after New Orleans acquired all of them in 2017. According to officials, another kind involved road-blocking, cylindrical columns known as bollards which were being replaced after being worn down. And the third type was a so-called wedge barrier that can be hydraulically raised and lowered in a matter of seconds when properly maintained – but which officials said was left down on the day of the attack because they feared it could malfunction and impede first responders.
Making that reality all the more painful for many is the fact that local authorities had commissioned a 2019 report which determined the French Quarter neighborhood to which Bourbon Street belongs was at particular risk for a vehicular attack.
Since he travelled to New Orleans, Whitford said, Meridian provided the city with a new slate of Archer barriers as well as the accessories needed to quickly deploy them and pick them back up. They can be erected side-by-side or staggered across roadways and sidewalks, with or without being chained together. They tilt back if struck by a motorist and causing – as Arnold himself admitted – “a massive amount of damage”.
Whitford said his company has provided training to first responders who would be dealing with them whether to deploy them, remove them after deployment or get them out of the way for vehicles responding to an emergency. The equipment and training should eliminate the need for the city to resort to using a crane truck crew to put out the Archer barriers, as it did the day after the attack, demonstrating an off-label, laborious deployment method.
The new green-and-white barriers replacing the prior yellow ones that the city allowed to rust in outdoor storage were an ubiquitous sight along Bourbon Street at night during the second weekend after the attack, in which two police officers were also shot and wounded.
Furthermore, Whitford said the company had drafted a plan to use hundreds of the barriers to secure its historic Jackson Square, nearby St Louis Cathedral and Carnival parades from vehicular rammings.
Whitford said the Archers are certified by the US’s homeland security department under a congressional act incentivizing anti-terrorism technology – unlike concrete and water-filled barriers that some have suggested as solutions in the wake of the attack. Asked about what he would tell people pointing out that no barriers would have helped against a shooting attack on Bourbon Street, Whitford said the Archers are rated to stop .50-caliber, armor piercing bullets – explaining why they have been used to shield the US army’s Fort Wainwright in Alaska as well as the base that the air force set up at Kandahar air field in Afghanistan.
Meridian’s home city of Pasadena, California, lines up about 600 of the Archers along its Rose Parade’s 5.4-mile route. When that parade unfolded on New Year’s Day 2024, a woman who allegedly had a history of mental illness tried to ram her car past an Archer barricade, which held, incapacitated her vehicle and saved the crowd of unsuspecting spectators from being hurt or worse.
Whitford said Meridian has arranged to keep a representative in New Orleans through Mardi Gras while it awaits word on how the city wants to proceed with its proposed security plan.
“Unfortunately,” Whitford said, “we were not here on New Year’s Day. But we are here now.”