It's Nightside with Dan Ray on WBZY, Boston's news radio.
Amma Friedman, thank you very much. We welcome our listeners to our first edition of Nightside twenty twenty five. Before we start, let me just thank my friend Morgan White, who was sat in for me for the last week and a half, which has allowed me to recover from whatever the heck I had bronchiitist, upper respiratory infection, whatever. And we had planned a show tonight was intended to be fairly light, kind of an easing back into twenty
twenty five. But I will tell you that it's changed a little bit because of what has happened early this morning in New Orleans. We will get to all of that in just a moment. Remind you my name is Dan Ray. I'm the host of Nightside, heard most every Monday through Friday night right here in WA Boston's news Radio.
Dan Cantano is behind the boot tonight. In the Boot tonight because Robber's on vacation and Dana do a great job and the story of the day, as I say, will in intended and we may get to some of these topics later. Things. You know, there would be a little lighter things like New Year's resolutions. What have I been dealing with? And have any of you been dealing with? This horrific cough and cold, It doesn't seem to go away.
And also remembering Jimmy Carter, a president who I spent a lot of time with, some time with both before he was president, while he was president, and after his president. But the big story of the day overwhelms all of that, and that is this horrific terrorist attack, clearly terrorist attack in New Orleans, which has now taken the lives of fifteen people, fifteen Americans who were in the French Quarter last night welcoming the new year. All of us were
welcoming it on our own way. And who better to talk about this briefly? But my next guest, my first guest, my only guest tonight, form a Boston Police Commissioner Ed Davis, who himself was in charge of the Boston Police Department at the time of the marathon bombing back in April of twenty thirteen. And so, and first of all, happy New Year to you and yours. But what a horrific way to start the new year here in America with a terrorist attack like this I'd love to just open
up with your thoughts. I mean, you've seen it up close and personally before you told me that you recently, I guess had lunch with the sheriff in Harris County, Texas, where I guess search warrants and investigations of being conducted tonight to find out what the real story was behind this fellow who took the lives of fifteen people. Welcome back to the Night's side of Davis. Sorry about the long introduction.
Oh no worries. Dan, It's great to talk to you as always, and you know, it's great to talk to you on the first day of the year, but tragic that it's about this topic. So we've been dealing with it all day today and it was a heck of a way to get woke up this morning.
Yeah, I'm sure that you must have, you know, flashbacks to what we went through here in Boston in a little over ten years ago, little over now, almost twelve years ago when you come to Sapril as you watched television today and I know that you were on some of the network newscasts. How could this happen? It looks to me like they were preparing for the Super Bowl,
and they kind of let their guard down. I guess there were certain I'm not familiar with the term bullyards, which are those steel pipes sticking up out of the ground in front of the State House and elsewhere that would become very familiar with. Those were in the process of being replaced, so they were not on Bourbon Street, which gave this guy every opportunity to swing around the police cars which were blocking the intersections and and do what he came to do.
Right. Yeah, we we we actually deal with ballards a lot in my line of business because we're constantly doing inspections of of businesses and corporations to make sure that they're secure. And and these devices really do protect you from a threat from a motor vehicle. Sometimes it's accidental, somebody just losing control of the car, but we use
them and recommend them to companies all the time. And and it, you know, it seems as though there was a decision made to change them out, and and and and instead of putting temporary ballats in or some other device which you can what you can get your hands on fairly easily, they decided to just park a police cruiser in the intersection and as we saw, this suspect was able to sneak his way around onto the sidewalk and passed the car quite frankly before the police officer
even realized what was going on. From the looks of it.
Yeah, I saw that that videotape. And by the way, you know, for those who are unaware, you now have a have a company which consults with corporations with I'm sure states and cities about what you have through your experience become an expert in and that is that is security. What's the name of the is it uh at Davis.
Wood Davis Company at the end with Davis Company.
Yeah, So, so this happens. It's it's inconceivable, but it happens more frequently. This guy apparently served in the US Army. He had a couple of stants, one with the regular Army and went to Afghanistan, was deployed to Afghanistan UH and then came back and spent a few years in the I guess the Texas Army reserve a Texas national card.
This is this is eerily familiar with the Fort Hoods shooter Nadal Hassan of two thousand and nine, a US major who who who slaughtered troops inside Fort Hood does? How does this happen that you know from your experience that someone who obviously serves in our military for a long, extended period of time somehow can get radicalized and go off and do something like this to fellow Americans, fellow human beings.
Right, it is a terrible thing to consider and something that shouldn't follow. I mean, people take an oath to the loyalty to the company, to the country. They are, you know, literally risking their lives to protect the country, and then something happens and and you know, the the concept of home grow own island extremists is something that the Justice Department and the FBI have been preaching about
for many years now. And anybody can be corrupted. I spoke to a good friend who's in the intelligence community, and he said something I thought resonated, which which is, you know, we train these guys and our worst nightmare is that they take their training and use it against us. And that happened in Oklahoma City, and it just apparently has happened again.
Now, yeah, I forgot Oklahoma City. Obviously. Timothy McVeigh full remember of the military, he became some sort of a right wing extremist. And Nadal Hassan, by the way, who's still on death row for the ford Hood shooting, and he was not one of the federal death row inmates who were who were pardoned by President Ford rather President Biden a week or so. Yeah, what are you hearing about. I'm hearing a lot of chatter here about this might be a broader conspiracy that this might not be the
traditional lone wolf. He had the IIS flag I guess, covered in with some sort of a jacket on the back of a car, but he was still flying the IIS flag. But there's some suggestion that they were IEDs planted around the city, and I believe that there's they're looking at, probably I guess his home where he lived, somewhere in Houston, in the Houston area. I know it's always tough to speculate here, but is your sense that there may be more to this than meets the eye.
Well, the FBI has said definitively that there are more people that they are investigating on this. It's a wider conspiracy than just one person. So you have to take them at their ward. Although I will say that there's a lot of misinformation that occurs in the first twenty four hours of these incidents, so I think it's important to sort of hold you hold your opinions until we're
certain that that they were in fact other bombs. You know, when we responded to the marathon, and I teach this to other police departments around the world, a lot of people who ran from the scene of the bombing dropped backpacks and bags and other things, and when we first got there, our bomb squad was already clearing each one of those packages because it's a common terrorist tactic to leave follow up devices. We must have had dozens of reports of bombs that day and they all turned out
to be false. So it does take a while to sort out the the you know, the the chaos from from from what the real facts are. But we are hearing that there were two other devices, and if he had those planted by someone, then clearly there's a conspiracy and that's extremely troubling.
Well, it will take some time to figure it out, but and I appreciate you coming on and on short notice tonight, but I just felt this was something that we that we really did need to talk about. So we may be back to you later on during the week, and let's hope that they can get to the bottom of this and figure out I woke up this morning and was they flipped on WBZ and heard everything went fine in Boston last night, but I realized very quickly that it didn't go fine in New Orleans. Thanks so
much for joining us tonight, Ed Davis, former Boston Police commissioner. Again, the name of your company now that you need the business, it's it's Davis and Company.
Is that the name again, Davis Company?
Yeah, but thank thank you very much.
Dan.
It's always great to talk to you, and I can I took your listeners again.
Thanks very much, Ed Davis.
All right, sure, thanks.
Thanks. Happy New Year. It is not a happy New Year in large parts of this country as a result of this, and so I have kind of reworked our schedule tonight, and I would like to talk about this because it is the it's the new story of the day. So I have some thoughts, but I'm interested in your thoughts as well. Six one seven, two, five, four ten thirty, triple eight nine to nine ten thirty or six one seven,
nine three one ten thirty. What was your reaction tonight this morning when you woke up and you realized terrorism. It looks as if a brand of a international terrorism with a with from a homegrown terrorist has once again impacted the lives of many families around this country this evening, this New Year's Day, a horribled way to start off New Year's We'll get to phone calls and we'll talk about this for a while, because I think it's something
that people need to need to vent about. We'll be back on night Side right after this.
Now back to Dan Way live from the Window World Place Studios on WBZ News Radio.
So I do want to hear from all of you, but I just want to very quickly try to hit upon some of the implications here that I see. One one, the suspect who's now dead, shamsud Din Jabbar, forty two. He's a US citizen. I guess he was born in Texas. I don't know anything about his family's background. But again according to the Associated Press, h that I'm that I'm relying upon, uh he had he drive drove his pickup truck into a crowd of New Year's revelers in on
Bourbon Street. Was around three point fifteen this morning on Wednesday, morning. Initially I thought, Okay, this guy probably was drinking all night, finally summoned the courage early today to do this. But now it looks a little different to me. It looks to me like he might have picked three fifty deen in the morning. Maybe maybe the crowds were thinned out a little bit. Maybe he felt that he could do the maximum damage to a crowd there was a little
thinned out. Potentially, maybe he thought that there might have been a shift change with the police, might have caught people off guard that the night had transpired, the New Year's had been wrung in. I don't know it. Certainly he thought about it a lot more than initially was suggested. So consequence of all of this, the Sugar Bowl Bowl Game, the Sugar Bowl Game, which was to be played tonight at the Superdome in New Orleans, has been postponed till
tomorrow night. That involves some you know, pretty important professional I should say, college football teams, both of which both teams have a lot of people who a fan base. We're beginning to get a little information on some of the victims of this horrific crime, and just it just shows how that terrorism he's not targeting a military installation, as Nadal Hassan was back in two thousand and nine. He's going after Americans who are celebrating New Year's Eve.
Amongst the victims that we know of at this point, and of course we will become familiar with all of their names over the next couple of days. A young eighteen year old woman, Nikira Didot aspiring to be a nurse. Thirty seven year old father of two, a guy named Reggie Hunter from Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and one that caught my eye. A fellow whose name is getting a lot of publicity at this point. His name is Tiger Beck, former high school and college football player from Louisiana. He
died Wednesday morning, according to the local media outlets. He played at Saint Thomas Moore Catholic High School in Lafayette, Louisiana. He attended high school there and then went on to play football at Princeton. Graduated from Princeton in twenty twenty one. He was working as an investment trader at a New York brokerage firm. His football coach said Wednesday he'd been texting with Tiger Beck's dad, sharing memories with the player who was a school kick returner and receiver from twenty
seventeen to twenty nineteen. And he said he might be the first Tiger to ever play for Princeton, although of course they are the Tigers, and that nickname described him as a competitor. The school's nickname is the Tigers. He was somebody that somehow, like in the key moments, just excelledon. Was full of energy, full of life. His brother is a reportedly a top wide receiver in Texas Christian University.
So probably at three point fifteen in the morning, there were very few people, you know, over the age of forty still out having a good time. And when we see the ultimate names, and hopefully it is no more than fifteen, although there were dozens of others injured, and they just upped the fatality count from ten to fifteen. Hopefully there will be no more than fifteen. But my fear is that is probably not true. All right, your
thoughts are welcome. Six one, seven, two, five, four ten thirty, six one seven, nine, three one ten thirty, triple eight nine to nine, ten thirty. I'll talk about this as long as you want. I think that not to ignore this tonight would have been an oversight. Uh, it's not the way I wanted to start the year. It's not the way you want to start the area that but
please feel free to join me. I hope that they can catch every as Louisiana Senator John Kennedy said that they if there are co conspirators, there's anyone who supported him, embedded this crime, Let's catch him, Let's catch them all, and let's find out where this this group, if it was it was something more than a lone wolf, where this group came from, how they coalesced, and how far and how how far the tentacles of the group reached. That's not too much you ask. Our large forcement authorities
are on it. Let's hope they do their best job possible. This is horrific. This is on the level in many respects of the Boston Marathon. This is New Orleans Boston Marathon. Back on Nightside, right after the news break, at the bottom of the hour, it's Nightside's news Radio. Well, we are talking about the terrorism attack in New Orleans. Not the way that I wanted to start the new year, not the way I'm sure any of you wanted to start the new year. But let's get to the call.
Six one seven four ten thirty six one seven nine ten thirty. We'll start it off with Gene and Everett. Gene, I don't know what we can say about this, but i'd love to get your reaction to it.
Okay, So here's the thing. First. First thing I wanted to mention is that NBC News and other news outlets have reported a little maybe dinner time, that the truck in New Orleans in the rental that was outside of the Trump Place in Las Vegas were both rented from the same company, which makes me suspicious. Anyway, I think.
I think what I heard on that Gene, was that the same app was used to rent the truck. Now I'm not exactly sure what that means, but this seems to be that connection there is here. But I gotta tell you, I'm a little skeptical of that, only because well, I don't know. I was I heard the same thing you said, uh, And I know that this this truck also had been reported crossing the border from Mexico at
some point. So there'll be a lot of stuff that we'll get out there, but I don't know what it means until the investigators right, pull it, pull it together, you know, No.
I understand, but that is that is a sign possibly, So that's one thing. The other thing is that the Tesla vehicle in Vegas near the Trump right out front actually looked like it was on the sidewalk yes building, which was weird. And and that they did find some kind of firework explosive like looking things in the vehicle, so they'll be able to get information from that, which is good. Whereas we also know over in uh, the the other I forgot where it was.
Now.
The second well, the thing in New Orleans. The thing that that that strikes me on that is that the thing in New Orleans was obviously intended to maximize the damage, the damage the death toll, right. And they were driving down Bourbon Street at three o'clock in the morning, and anyone's ever been on Bourbon Street and I have people are there at all hours of the night. It's open entertainment district. And it seems to me that if we it may have some sort of link to the Tesla
and Trump and in the Trump Hotel or whatever. However, it would seem to me that if you were planning to to conduct a terrorist attack, that was going to the gravity of which was going to kill potentially, you know, dozens of people. It's already fifteen and injured dozens. Would you want to also be at the same time messing around blowing up at Tesla in front of Trump's a Trump Well property, I don't know.
Well, I'll answer that, But the thing is I feel that I feel there's there's more of them out there. I feel like there might be some more things happening. I really do, and don't forget.
The authorities would agree with you.
I think planted devices Yep.
Well they said that. I asked ed Davis about that by the way off air, and he's he said that oftentimes when something of this magnitude happens, they check security cameras and they'll see people acting suspiciously, and oftentimes when they go out and they approach these devices, whatever they might be, they don't want to take a risk, and
so they will blow it up. So, if let's say someone I don't know, you know, was was drunk and they put their bag down on the on the on the street corner, uh, the authorities might say, we're not going to open that bag, We're just going to blow it up. And assume it's an I.
D so well.
As Ed said, let's let's see where the investigation lies. But you made some interesting points.
And can I can I say one quick thing I feel, I feel what can help with this type of thing is I think that the Fedral government should have a regional training for all states and train them on what the city's need to do when they have any kind of events, and what they need to do when there's ever anything that looks strange like a tesla packed up on a sidewalk or whatever. Because these not all cities in town and not all states know what to do, and we need to all be doing the same thing.
Well, certainly it's all all the big cities. I think there's three hundred and fifty one cities in towns in Massachusetts. There's a lot of communities that are not going to be targeted. You know, they target big events, they target things like the Boston Marathon.
But the target things like state New Years.
Yeah, okay, thanks, you appreciate yours always.
Night you two.
Good night. Let me go to Lewis in Quinsey. Lewis, you're next to the nightside. Welcome.
How are you doing.
I'm doing fine. Didn't didn't expect to start our night side year on this topic, but here we are.
What's your take on I know I feel bad too, it's really bad. But in an indirect way, did you get me kind of passed away? What if? What if he had stood up to the shop all those years ago? Look at the problems that have come because of the Crenati and the fanatics. Lab you're doing which suicide Barber's which is a philosophy. What a mistake he made? What do you think about it? Look back forty years and it's hard to stop a suicide Barber?
Yeah, well again with with Without going deep into the arrival of the Ayatola. You know, the Ayatola had been in exile for a long long time, and when the time was right, he flew. I believe it was from Paris uh to Tehran and at that point the Shah fled Uh and just as Asad's government collapsed a couple of weeks ago in Syria, Iran collapse. The government of Iran, the Shah's government. Basically, it was like a deck of cards, it just collapsed. So I don't know that Jimmy Carter
could have done much. I think that there might have been a failure of our intelligence organizations in not realizing how fragile the Shah's government really was, and all it took was the arrival of the Ayatola to basically complete the revolution in Iran. And I think a lot of that.
I think a lot of that, Lewis. If you recall back in the early seventies and into the mid seventies, we as a country, after what had gone on in Vietnam and what had gone on with the Frank Church Committee and with Watergate, we had kind of turned inwards and we had said, hey, let's just worry about America. And I think that it was more than Jimmy Carter. I think it's tough to place it at the desk of the press. I realized, as Harry Truman said, the buckstops here.
But I think it was.
Much more of a failure of our intelligence agencies to understand what was going on in Iran. We installed the Shajs, you know, back in the nineteen fifties, and because of that, it generated a lot of ill will towards us. But interesting, interesting to bring us back to that point, because ever since the Eyetola, the Eyetola Homini. He brought nothing but misery to the people of Iran, into the world, into the world.
You know, maybe I'm just saying maybe I used to read books about what if? What if?
You know what, I'm a big what if guy uh Lewis, and that is what if. Let's say any presidential election in your lifetime in my lifetime turned out differently. So let's just pick up let's let's let's pick uh an election. Let's assume that Jimmy Carter hadn't won and Gerald Ford was re elected. Uh, you probably never would have had
Ronald Reagan, you know, I mean if that's funny. Yeah, well, it's just if you look at this, I mean, if let's say Mike Decaccas had beaten George Bush uh nineteen eighty eight, Uh, there would have been no Bill Clinton presidency because I think that.
By Goldwater, Well.
If Goldwater had been elected, uh, you know, Goldwater was a Republican, he was a long shot Republican. He then would have been challenged in sixty eight. There would have been no Richard Nixon because Goldwater would have been president until sixty eight and Richard Nixon would have aged out. I think as a potential president. So yeah, I like that. What if game too, Lewis? I I we we could, we could compare notes.
Somenight, Okay, happy to do your dad.
Happy New Year, Lewis, appreciate you call. Thank you much. Let me go. Well, you got to take a break. I got a couple of open lines six one, seven, two, four, ten thirty six one seven, nine three one ten thirty. I'd like to talk about this. It's again not my choice this morning, but it is becoming a bigger story. The death toll has increased from ten to fifteen, and now it appears that this is maybe maybe more than the action of a lone wolf. How do we deal
with this? How do we deal with it? I think that with the change of administration in January later this month, now what twenty days from now? I think that if I were Nadal Hussein Nissan Nadal, the major major major Nadal, sitting on death row, I would think that this is not going to help me survive the arrival of the Trumpet presidency. I suspect that some of the people that Joe Biden left on death row, once their repeals are out,
they're going to be dealt with pretty quickly. And I think that that cowardly major that killed Nadal Hussein, the American soldiers at Fort Hood in two thousand and nine, I think his days are number. Back on Night's side were phone calls. The only best line right now is six one seven nine.
Right after this, Now back to Dan Ray line from the Window World Night Side Studios on WBZ News Radio.
I'm back to the calls. Go, let's go to John and act and John, your reaction to this tragedy, tragic terrorist attack in New Orleans.
Oh, it's a mess. It's a mess. So I'm calling. And it was just coincidence that when I got ready to call, you already had somebody on. You were talking about the rent share company. So I think this is interesting. I don't have any reason necessarily to believe that the two incidents in Las Vegas and New Orleans are related, but the rent share is an interesting aspect. And I've used one of the big rent share companies, Turo, three times,
once in Charleston, once in Minneapolis, and once in Southampton, England. Okay, and do you know how they work, because it's kind of interesting.
I do not, and I very much appreciate your calling and I hope you'll explain it to me in my audience because I am unfamiliar with this.
Okay, So it's it's it's sort of like Uber, and so it's it's rent sharing. Let's assume I have an extra car, okay, I Uh, so I sign up with with a rent share company and offer my car at whatever price I choose. And uh people, you know, the users go online and they look for a car that of the kind that they want. The reason I've used it is I drive a Tesla and I and that's a and that's one easy way to be sure you get to rent a Tesla only.
I want to ask you a question. How many rent share I mean, there's a zillion in airbnbs, okay, so how many you know? Well known rent share company you mentioned? The name of this one was Curo qu.
I r O heiro t U r O. That's the only rent share company I know of. And I don't know how many companies there are like Airbnb, you know, and everybody knows Uber and probably a lot of people know Lyft. I don't know how many other companies they are are. Beyond that. Turo is the one that I've used. I don't know if that's the one that was used in this case. I haven't heard the name, and I
don't know how many there are. But again, like Uber okay, there are thousands and thousands of independent people okay who offer their cars for rent through Turo, just like Uber has thousands and thousands of drivers. So the cars don't belong to Tiro. The people don't work for Tiro. They just like Airbnb okay, list their cars for as available, and you sign up to rent the car, and you know, you provide your driver's license, and you rent the car.
And here's the key thing that makes me realize that these are idea that better than that, This is better than hurts for a terrorist or anybody going to do any any crime, whether it's terror or or any crime that invalls a vehicle. You don't go somewhere, you know, like you don't go to an agency to get the car. They tell you an address that the car will be at, which which may be where the person who owns it lives, or it just may be a place where he likes to keep it parked.
And you drive, I'm on the I'm on the site now to a row to U R O Uh. And so the caller, I think it was Gene from Everett, was suggesting that there was potentially a connection between the fact that what happened in Las Vegas with the Tesla blowing up or whatever catching fire, Uh, and the horrific events in New Orleans, that that might link them. I think what you're telling me is that's not likely going
to link them. It just is that. That's that's two, it's it's it's it probably do you probably see it as no no connection at all. Did he lose him? Did we lose him? John? If you call back, we'll pick you up on the other line on the other other side. Okay, of the of the nine o'clock news, call us back, John. I wanted to get your answer to that question. Patrick is in Washington, d C. Patrick next on Nightside. Welcome.
I'm very sorry for all the news here. I wanted to be able to welcome you back under different circumstances and thank you. They had a load to do and cheer everybody on. This is not our favorite subject. Yes, I do want to hear what that gentleman has to say. So I knew who he calls back.
Yeah, it was I think what he was saying, was that that it's fairly common. John is called back. Hold on, stay right there, Patrick, I will come back to you in one second. John, We lost you there for a second. I was asking you the question. It sounds to me like you're saying that this is probably nothing more than a coincidence because a lot of people are using this particular app. Now, is that what the.
New incidents are Possibly nothing more than a coincidence. But the app is ideal because you don't actually necessarily even meet the person. You could come up with fake identification and rent the car and show up and get the car and nobody sees you and you're not tracked. And this is another thing that I think is important. Okay, so the government isn't going to have a list of
all license plates that belong to rental cars. Nothing identifies the car as a rental car, either on the car or through its license plate, or through some sort of sticker on the window. There's it just looks like a completely private car.
So what's conceivable, what you're telling me is that the guy that you know basically effectuated all of the carnage on Bourbon Street last night could have picked this car up from some person in Houston, Texas who's he never met, never seen before. And and maybe that's why they're looking at an address in Houston. It may have nothing to do that must just be some person who rented their truck.
U know that the address in Houston has nothing to do with it, but they're they're probably looking to see if they have cameras so they can see if it was the same person that they killed who picked up the car.
M interesting. Okay, John, really good call. Thank you very much. Thank you caller of the night so far. Thanks John. I appreciate call more often. Okay, thanks, bye bye. All right, let me get back to Patrick. Patrick, we only got about a minute left here. I can hold you over if you want to be held over, well.
I would like to do that because I'd like to talk with you on this and I'm gonna move quickly once we get into the after the hours.
Yeah. Just I thought that that John's call and the fact that he called back is interesting. He's basically making the case that what a great way for somebody. You know, you you rent your your third car, you rent your regular car, and all of a sudden you look at television realize it's being driven down Bourbon Street by a terrorist. Interesting, interesting theory. I was up until a couple of minutes ago, I had never heard of Touro. So we'll talk with
Patrick on the other side. Patrick, stay right there. Here comes to nine o'clock News. If you would like to reinforce what John had to say, or if you have a comment, feel Fraace. Here's the line six one, seven, two, five, four ten thirty six one seven nine three one ten thirty one hour down, more than eight hundred to go in twenty twenty five. Will be back on nightside right after this