U.S.! Las Vegas Cybertruck explosion, New Orleans truck attack, New York City, Robbery, Theft 2025.1.3-1.4

CNN — At 3:13 a.m. on the first day of the new year, Alexis Scott-Windham laughed in a video on Bourbon Street with friends while holding a New Orleans signature cocktail.

“I was having a blast,” Alexis, 23, told CNN.

Just minutes later, the whole night would change.

As Alexis’ group debated where to get a late-night snack to end their night out, a man from Texas drove a 6,000-pound pickup truck into a crowd on Bourbon Street, firing a weapon and running into Alexis and her friend Brandon Whitsett.

The FBI confirmed Thursday 14 people were killed and dozens injured in the terror attack.

Before the night took a tragic turn, Alexis described a hopeful New Year’s celebration with new friends and old.

She drove from Mobile, Alabama, with seven friends, including Brandon, to New Orleans on New Year’s Eve.

The area surrounding Bourbon Street was packed, Alexis said, making it difficult to even find a parking spot.

They bought some infamous New Orleans Hand Grenade cocktails.

They ended up meeting some other tourists, from Chicago and their Alabama hometown, bonding with them while drinking cocktails.

At midnight, she remembers being in the middle of Bourbon Street with her new Chicago friends and taking a selfie while laughing.

“Everybody was just telling each other Happy New Year. It was a great vibe … everybody was dancing,” said Alexis. “I was just happy to be with my friends and ring in 2025. It started out so good.”

At one point, someone threw $20 bills from a balcony, which Alexis and her friends tried to grab.

After the ball dropped, her group stayed mostly outside on Bourbon Street rather than in the bars, because they could still hear the music.

“People would dance in the street,” said Alexis. “Everyone was throwing beads and stuff, just having a good time.”

Around 2:40 a.m., they decided to try to get some food and head home. They first went to a pizza place but it was closed, so they were debating going to a Waffle House.

That’s when they suddenly heard a loud noise go “Boom, Boom, Boom,” according to Alexis.

“As we look to our left, we see the truck come down the sidewalk because he was halfway on the sidewalk and halfway on the street. As he’s coming down, he has no lights on,” said Alexis. “He was hitting people like speed bumps, like we were nothing.”

At first, she thought he was a drunken driver, but then quickly realized he was intentionally trying to hit people.

As she tried to jump out of the way, the front of his truck hit the back of her leg. She thought it broke her ankle.

Then she saw the bodies in the street.

“When I got up, I saw a man and he was dead. He was just leaking blood … They were trying to help him but he was already gone. There was a man on the other side of me too. He was on the ground facedown and he wasn’t even moving.”

As she started to look around to process what was happening, she realized she couldn’t get up and walk on her own, because her foot was bleeding so much.

“I’m trying to get up. I’m trying to get out of there. I made it this far, I’m trying to survive and make it home,” said Alexis, recalling she started to panic.

Just then, one of her friends in the group found her and helped carry her to a side street away from Bourbon Street, worried it wasn’t safe on the main street.

Her friend looked at her and said, “Lex, I think you got shot.” She hadn’t even realized at first, saying the whole incident happened “like a snap of a finger.”

Thinking back, she believes the driver shot at her from the truck while she was falling.

Her other friends regrouped on the side street but no one could find their friend Brandon, who was standing right next to Alexis before the truck plowed through the street. She started crying out of fear for Brandon, whom she said is like a brother to her.

A police officer nearby found Alexis and tried to get her an EMT, she said, while her friends went to search for Brandon. She thought the EMTs were focused on people with more severe injuries, so it was taking too long.

“By that time, I was already in pain. I was shivering, I was cold, I was crying, like I need to get out of here right now,” she said.

A good Samaritan who walked by offered to take her to the hospital. Alexis was dubious because she didn’t know him.

“But time was ticking and I was hurting, so I was like, ‘just get me there,’” Alexis said. “He was like, ‘I’m going to get you there.’”

Her friends were unable to find Brandon, causing more anxiety for the group. It turned out he had been rushed to a hospital.

Alexis was able to speak to him by phone Thursday night but said he was having difficultly talking because he is still in so much pain. She has faith he’ll make it out of this but said his legs, shoulders and back are “really messed up.”

After surviving a traumatic night, Alexis doesn’t want to live in fear and importantly, she doesn’t want other young people to be afraid of experiencing the world and having fun either. Instead, she thinks people should be alert and aware of their surroundings.

She also feels surviving such a tragic incident has made her feel stronger and people are looking up to her, including her one-year-old daughter.

“When my daughter grows, she’s going to have to see it and she’s going to see her mama was strong and made it through the situation,” Alexis said.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The highly decorated Special Forces soldier who died by suicide in a Cybertruck explosion on New Year’s Day confided to a former girlfriend who had served as an Army nurse that he faced significant pain and exhaustion that she says were key symptoms of traumatic brain injury.

Green Beret Matthew Livelsberger, 37, was a five-time recipient of the Bronze Star, including one with a V device for valor under fire. He had an exemplary military record that spanned the globe and a new baby born last year. But he struggled with the mental and physical toll of his service, which required him to kill and caused him to witness the deaths of fellow soldiers.

Livelsberger mostly bore that burden in private but recently sought treatment for depression from the Army, according to a U.S. official who spoke on condition of anonymity to provide details that have not been made public.

He also found a confidant in the former nurse, who he began dating in 2018.

Alicia Arritt, 39, and Livelsberger met through a dating app while both were in Colorado Springs. Arritt had served at Landstul Regional Medical Center in Germany, the largest U.S. military medical facility in Europe, where many of the worst combat injuries from Iraq and Afghanistan were initially treated before being flown to the U.S.

There she saw and treated traumatic brain injuries, or TBIs, which troops suffered from incoming fire and roadside bombs. Serious but hard to diagnose, such injuries can have lingering effects that might take years to surface.

“I saw a lot of bad injuries. But the personality changes can happen later,” Arritt said.

In texts and images he shared with Arritt, Livelsberger raised the curtain a bit on what he was facing.

“Just some concussions,” he said in a text about a deployment to Helmand Province in Afghanistan. He sent her a photo of a graphic tattoo he got on his arm of two skulls pierced by bullets to mark lives he took in Afghanistan. He talked about exhaustion and pain, not being able to sleep and reliving the violence of his deployment.

“My life has been a personal hell for the last year,” he told Arritt during the early days of their dating, according to text messages she provided to the AP. “It’s refreshing to have such a nice person come along.”

On Friday Las Vegas law enforcement officers released excerpts of messages Livelsberger left behind showing the manner in which Livelsberger killed himself was intentional, meant both as a “wakeup call” but also to “cleanse the demons” he was facing from losing fellow soldiers and taking lives.

Livelsberger’s death in front of the Trump Hotel using a truck produced by Elon Musk’s Tesla company has raised questions as to whether this was an act of political violence.

Officials said Friday that Livelsberger apparently harbored no ill will toward President-elect Donald Trump, and Arritt said both she and Livelsberger were Tesla fans.

“I had a Tesla too that I rescued from a junkyard in 2019, and we used to work on it together, bond over it,” Arritt said.

The pair stopped talking regularly after they broke up in 2021, and she had not heard from him in more than two years when he texted out of the blue Dec. 28, and again Dec. 31. The upbeat messages included a video of him driving the Cybertruck and another one of its dancing headlights; the vehicle can sync up its lighting and music.

But she also said Livelsberger felt things “very deeply and I could see him using symbolism” of both the truck and the hotel.

“He wasn’t impulsive,” Arritt said. “I don’t see him doing this impulsively, so my suspicion would be that he was probably thinking it out.”

Arritt served on active duty from 2003 to 2007 and then was in the Army Reserve from until 2011. With Livelsberger she saw symptoms of TBI as early as 2018.

“He would go through periods of withdrawal, and he struggled with depression and memory loss,” Arritt said.

“I don’t know what drove him to do this, but I think the military didn’t get him help when he needed it.”

But Livelsberger was also sweet and kind, she recalled: “He had a really deep well of inner strength and character, and he just had a lot of integrity.”

Pentagon deputy press secretary Sabrina Singh told reporters Friday that it has turned over all Livelsberger’s medical records to local law enforcement, and encouraged troops facing mental health challenges to seek care through one of the military’s support networks.

“If you need help, if you feel that you need to seek any type of mental health treatment, or just to talk to someone — to seek the services that are available, either on base or off,” Singh said.

When Livelsberger struggled during the time they were dating, Arritt prodded him to get help. But he would not, saying it could cost him his ability to deploy if he was found medically unfit.

“There was a lot of stigma in his unit, they were, you know, big, strong, Special Forces guys there, there was no weakness allowed and mental health is weakness is what they saw,” she said.

Livelsberger seeking treatment for depression was first reported by CNN.

LAS VEGAS – Investigators in Las Vegas officially identified the driver who died by suicide while triggering a Tesla Cybertruck explosion outside of a Trump hotel, and they are getting more clues to a possible motive.

Sheriff Kevin McMahill on Friday confirmed that Matthew Livelsberger, a highly decorated 37-year-old Army Green Beret, took his own life as part of a self-described “stunt” to get the attention of his fellow Americans.

Livelsberger was the only person killed in Wednesday’s blast, though seven bystanders suffered minor injuries. Dept. of Defense dental records and a DNA match allowed the medical examiner to confirm his identity.

‘Notes’ app reveals some clues to motive
What we know: Investigators say they have been able to access Livelsberger’s phone, where they found an app he used to keep a “journal,” in their words. That journal contained two letters, and they released excerpts of those writings on Friday:

“Fellow servicemembers, veterans, and all Americans. TIME TO WAKE UP! We are being led by weak and feckless leadership who only serve to enrich themselves.”

“We are the United States of America, the best country people to ever exist! But right now we are terminally ill and headed toward collapse. This was not a terrorist attack, it was a wake up call. Americans only pay attention to spectacles and violence. What better way to get my point across than a stunt with fireworks and explosives? Why did I personally do it now? I needed to cleanse my mind of the brothers I’ve lost and relieve myself of the burden of the lives I took.”

What we don’t know: There’s still a lot that’s not clear about Livelsberger’s state of mind and what led him to Las Vegas.

Sheriff Kevin McMahill said there’s nothing yet to indicate why Livelsberger chose the Trump International Hotel or why he rented a Tesla Cybertruck for the blast.

McMahill said there would be “more to come” about Livelsberger’s political leanings but that Livelsberger was “not opposed” to President-elect Trump.

What they’re saying: “Although this incident is more public and more sensational than usual, it ultimately appears to be a tragic case of suicide involving a heavily decorated combat veteran who is struggling with PTSD and other issues.” – Spencer Evans/Special Agent in Charge, Las Vegas Division

“They’re exposed to things. They see things. They hear things. They feel things and they smell things that most normal people don’t have to do. And the heroes that are serving in the military and on the front lines of America’s policing, are challenged that way. And so I think we need to really pay attention to those individuals, pay attention to what mental health in America looks like. – Sheriff Kevin McMahill, LVMPD

What’s next: Police say they have a lot more documents and data to comb through, along with a social media trail that they hope will provide more clues about what led Livelsberger to end his own life in such a way.

No connection to New Orleans attack

Officials reiterated that, despite some coincidences, there appears to be no link between Livelsberger’s death and the deadly terror attack in New Orleans on the same day.

While suspected killer Shamsud-Din Jabbar was also an Army veteran who allegedly rented a truck for his attack, investigators say they have no sign that the two men ever communicated or even knew each other.

A plucky elderly woman on her way to a New Year’s Day church service fought back when a violent group of teen girls pummeled her during a botched robbery inside a Brooklyn subway station, cops said.

Linda Rosa, 71 – a retired MTA computer operation worker who lives in East New York – got off a No. 3 train at Hoyt Street just after 6 p.m. and had just passed through the turnstile when one of the four girls tried to grab her purse, she told The Post Friday.

“And then I [said to myself], ‘Oh, no, this is not going to happen today,’” Rosa said.

Then, another teen tried to grab Rosa’s bag too and said: “Oh, you want to fight?”

Rosa continued holding tight to her purse, which didn’t discourage the young would-be robbers.

“The first person kept fighting,” Rosa said. “She punched me in my face and I have my glasses on, and I have a cut on my nose. When she punched me in my face, my glasses flew to the floor.”

“Meanwhile the other young lady was still trying to distract me to get my pocketbook or go into my purse, to snatch something out of my purse,” she recalled.

The teen ended up grabbing a pocket pouch that held Rosa’s ID and medical records, she said.

“I was still wrestling with the first person,” Rosa said. “Then I was trying to kick her in between her legs, but my leg wouldn’t stretch far enough, so I believe that’s when I fell. I fell, and then she stomped on me.”

Rosa said she sensed that the hostile teens weren’t done yet, so she took action.

“I got an impression in me that she was going to stomp me again, but she was going to aim towards my head,” she said. “So I got up right away, and with that, I grabbed her braids and twirled them around my right hand, and then I pulled her down. She had her head down. Then the other young lady said, ‘Let her go.’ And I said, ‘Oh, no, I’m not letting her go.’”

The senior yelled out for someone to help her – when she noticed that the second teen had tossed her pocket pouch to the ground and was coming toward her again.

“So out of nowhere, I grabbed her hair and twisted it around my left hand,” Rosa said. “So I had them both facedown….[like] rams when they’re getting ready to fight.”

The other girls screamed, “Let them go! Let them go!” but Rosa held on and yelled, “I need assistance! I need assistance!”

Moments later, Rosa did let go and started picking up her belongings off the floor.

The startled teens ran up the steps as Rosa told them she was going to call the cops.

Rosa – who retired from the MTA in 2016 after working for the agency for about 42 years – then headed to the nearby Brooklyn Tabernacle Church, where the staff tended to her and called 911.

She was taken to The Brooklyn Hospital Center for treatment.

Rosa said she is thankful she wasn’t hurt worse.

“Thank God they didn’t have no weapons,” she said. “I thank God I didn’t have a heart attack and a stroke and die!”

Her attackers – seen passing through the turnstile in footage released by the NYPD – were still on the loose Friday, but Rosa said she is already granting them some grace.

“I forgive them. They do not know what they do,” Rosa said. “They don’t know what they did. It’s just teenagers acting foolish.”

The attack came during a violent stretch for the city’s transit system that saw a woman burned to death, a man shoved in front of a train and multiple stabbings or slashings.

“It could happen to anybody,” Rosa said of the violence. “Now we’re seeing seniors getting attacked. Anywhere – it can happen anywhere, any station. You could be walking down the street. You could be crossing the street.”