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S u n d ay, d e c e m b e r 28, 2025
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Son readies to assume N.O. East pulpit Fred Luter Jr. retiring after 40 years at Franklin Avenue Baptist BY DESIREE STENNETT Staff writer
STAFF PHOTO By DAVID GRUNFELD
Pedestrians walk under ‘Second Line in the Sky’ memorial banners along Bourbon Street. Following the deadly early morning tragedy on Jan. 1 in the French Quarter, city officials have increased the focus on public safety on the Bourbon corridor, including enhanced police presence, traffic restrictions and crowd-control measures.
Keeping Bourbon Street safe A year after New year’s attack, long-term security plans still unresolved
BY SOPHIE KASAKOVE Staff writer
At 6 p.m. on Christmas Eve at the foot of Bourbon Street, Joseph Hamilton III watched as a nightly routine played out. Four New Orleans police officers hopped out of a golf cart, forced 3-foot-tall steel barriers into their positions on the street, and sped off, their blue lights flashing to the next intersection. As he listened to a brass band on the corner of Iberville Street, Hamilton, a New Orleans resident, thought back to the vehicle attack a year ago that killed 14 people, and the security failures that were revealed by it.
“They should have been like that from Day One,” he said, motioning to the blockades. Since the attack, public safety leaders in New Orleans have more or less echoed Hamilton’s sentiment. New Orleans’ homeland security director Collin Arnold and 8th District New Orleans Police Department Capt. Samuel Palumbo say that the barriers, along with others that fully close the street to traffic during special events and holidays, would help impede a similar attack. But officials have also acknowledged flaws in the current system. For one, the barriers are time-consuming to set up and can withstand
only low-speed crashes. They were also only intended to be a stopgap measure, and broader plans from a 43-page consulting report — calling for the installation of permanent barriers, potentially shutting down the famous strip to traffic and increasing law-enforcement coordination — haven’t yet materialized. French Quarter residents and business owners say they remain worried about safety and also the need to ensure tourists return to New Orleans’ hospitality and economic engine. A consistent, long-term solution is needed, they argue.
ä See SAFE, page 8A
‘Part of me is still broken’
Families of attack victims reflect on what was lost that night BY MICHELLE HUNTER Staff writer
Landon Hunter stepped on the track for a meet on May 3 and his heart suddenly began to race. It wasn’t nerves troubling the seventh grader from the Lake Charles area, however, but a memory that he said replayed like a scene from a movie. A year earlier, at his firstever meet, Landon’s father, Reggie Hunter, had been front and center. He stood at the fence line, recording
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video and cheering on his son’s track debut. Landon knew his father would be absent this time, but the 12-year-old couldn’t stop himself from scanning the crowd. “I went ahead and looked for him. He wasn’t where he was last time,” Landon said. Reggie Hunter, 37, was one of the 14 people killed Jan. 1 on Bourbon Street when an Islamic Stateinspired man plowed his pickup truck through the
STAFF PHOTO By LESLIE WESTBROOK
Landon Hunter, 12, holds a picture of his father, Reggie Hunter, on Friday at his home in Iowa, La. Reggie Hunter was among those killed in the New year’s Day Bourbon ä See FAMILIES, page 7A Street terror attack.
Business ......................1E Deaths .........................3B Nation-World................2A Classified ..................... 1F Living............................1D Opinion ........................6B Commentary ................7B Metro ...........................1B Sports ..........................1C
More people packed into the pews at Franklin Avenue Baptist Church in New Orleans East on a Monday evening last month than many churches see on an average Sunday service. Longtime pastor Fred Luter Jr. had announced plans to retire from his role leading the church on his 40th anniversary next fall. And for his succession plan, he wanted to see his son the Rev. Fred “Chip” Luter III take over and carry the church into its next phase. In the past four decades, Franklin Avenue Baptist Church went from a small 65-member church in the St. Roch area to one of the largest and most influential mega churches in the state, visible from Interstate 10 and spanning several city blocks. Its rebuilding after Hurricane Katrina was a beacon of hope, and even as the COVID-19 pandemic emptied churches and other institutions and services moved online, Franklin Avenue has been able to bring back much of its congregation and maintain connection and influence in the community. That Monday in early November, the church responded with resounding support for Chip Luter. Of 826 people who showed up to vote on if he should be the next pastor, 96% chose to accept him. “It was just overwhelming,” he said earlier this month. He had spent two weeks fielding early congratulations from congregants walking up after services, at the grocery store and while he was out in the community to share their well wishes. He said he knew he was likely to be voted in just as his father had been decades ago. He felt he was ready to take over the church that had molded him since he was 2 years old, but it wasn’t until the numbers were in that he could be sure the church members felt the same.
ä See PULPIT, page 6A
STAFF PHOTO By CHRIS GRANGER
The Rev. Fred Luter Jr., center, and his son, the Rev. Fred ‘Chip’ Luter III, walk into Franklin Avenue Baptist Church on Nov. 9 in New Orleans.
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