The world famous Bourbon Street is known as a place where things get pretty wild but witnesses say the area reached a whole new level of crazy Saturday night during several stampede incidents.
Miguel Fernandez, who works as a valet, described what he saw around 11 p.m. Saturday to WWL-TV’s Paul Dudley.
“A couple of stampedes going on, crowd running back a forth, people getting ran over and trampled,” said Fernandez.
Witnesses say they saw at least two stampedes. One along Bourbon near Canal Street and another on Canal Street coming from the direction of Royal Street.
“Late Saturday, I was working the dining service,” said another witness, Corey Guy. “Out of the blue just stampedes. Everyone is running. They are looking back. They are running towards Canal. Tables are getting up they are looking like ‘What’s going on?’ What's going on?’”
Social media erupted with people reporting a shooting but that was not the case, according to the NOPD. Police say several individuals were trying to cause panic for their own amusement during a busy Bayou Classic weekend.
“Childish. Really childish. Come on man. We trying to have a good time. You are causing chaos,” said Guy when asked what he thought about individuals yelling false threats to scare the crowd. “You can stay where you are at and do that.”
Known for their crowd control, NOPD officers were able to deescalate the situation without any reported injuries. However, witnesses say, they saw handful of people with bumps and bruises and other minor injuries.
“The first stampede was 8,” said Fernandez. “The second was three.”
Michael Horn was working at a Lucky Dog stand on the corner of Bourbon and Canal when the chaos broke out. He too started running.
“This is not good,” said Horn when asked what he was thinking at the time. “Let me get the heck out of the way.”
Horn says he sees this kind of behavior on Bourbon from time to time, especially during big events like the Bayou Classic. He worries it will keep people away.
“It’s going to bring down tourism,” said Horn. “It’s going to bring down the economy in this area. It’s not something you want.”
Police have not made any arrests on this case, but they certainly had their hands full this weekend. According to NOPD, between Thursday night and Sunday morning officers in the 8th district made 27 gun arrests and took 27 illegal guns off the street.