New Year’s violence in New Orleans, Las Vegas casts renewed focus on veterans’ mental health, including on LI

A truck attack in New Orleans that killed 14 and a suicide bomber who injured seven in Las Vegas earlier this month are bringing fresh attention to the suspects’ military backgrounds and the mental health of veterans who served in combat roles.

“This has been an underserved population and a population that does not generally willingly reach out for support,” said Sherri Kaplan, who oversees CN Guidance & Counseling Services’ Bridging the Gap program, which connects Long Island veterans with mental health and substance abuse treatment. 

Concerns about mental health care for veterans is particularly acute on Long Island, which is home to the largest proportion of veterans in the state, with about 64,000 current or former active military in Suffolk County and roughly 45,000 in Nassau, according to a 2021 report from the nonprofit New York Health Foundation.

Kaplan said returning service members have a tendency to isolate and often are reluctant to seek help. Her program, she said, engages former service members to find veterans in need in the community. “And so by pushing our veterans out into the community, they’re able to make that connection,” she said.

FBI counterterrorism official said investigators have found “no known definitive link” between the two Jan. 1 events, but the agency continues to investigate both attacks.

Early New Year’s morning in New Orleans, authorities said Shamsud-Din Jabbar rammed his rented truck through a crowd on Bourbon Street, killing 14 people and injuring about 30 more. Jabbar, who spent 13 years in the U.S. Army or U.S. Army Reserve, including a tour in Afghanistan in 2009, left the military in 2020 as a staff sergeant.

The 42-year-old former soldier, who died in a shootout with police, had posted videos on social media pledging support for the Islamic State militant group and had an ISIS flag in his vehicle, according to the FBI.

About five hours later, U.S. Army Special Forces Master Sgt. Matthew Livelsberger died by suicide in a rented Tesla Cybertruck that exploded from an improvised device of gas canisters and large fireworks outside the Trump hotel in Las Vegas, authorities said. No one else died in the explosion, but law enforcement officials said seven people were injured. 

Las Vegas police said they found a note in the 37-year-old Green Beret’s phone stating he needed to “cleanse” his mind “of the brothers I’ve lost and relieve myself of the burden of the lives I took.”

An FBI investigator said the incident ultimately appeared to be “a tragic case of suicide” by a decorated combat veteran who was struggling with PTSD and other issues. A former Army nurse who previously had been Livelsberger’s girlfriend told The Associated Press he had faced significant pain and exhaustion that she recognized as key symptoms of traumatic brain injury.

Shad Meshad, president and founder of the National Veterans Foundation, which runs street outreach missions for homeless veterans in the Los Angeles area, said in his view Jabbar and Livelsberger struggled to readjust to society after returning from combat.

“They come back and they don’t fit anywhere,” said Meshad, a Vietnam veteran who has advocated for fellow U.S. military service members for the past 50 years. “There’s no help to assist them. They go to the VA. It’s a huge bureaucracy. They’re told to ‘Get in line and sit down’ … So it’s just the confusion. The trauma. And the ideology in social media where they can get confused and say ‘Damn I’m angry.’ “

Jennifer Silva, chief program officer of Wounded Warrior Project, a nonprofit based in Jacksonville, Florida, that serves veterans and active duty service members, warned against drawing too many parallels between the two events.

“There’s no single reason for this type of behavior but people with mental health conditions are no more likely, really, to be violent than anyone else,” said Silva, who served in the Army as a logistics officer. “People obviously have questions, and it’s a lot to process, but I just hesitate to draw a ton of conclusions from these two events.”

In New York State, more than 60% of veterans who recently left the military suffered a physical or mental disability while serving, and 1 in 4 were experiencing depression or PTSD, according to a report the New York Health Foundation released in the fall.

In addition, rates of suicidal thoughts were twice as high among the 1,122 veterans discharged or separated from the military between January 2018 and January 2023 who were surveyed for the report, as compared with the general population.

Gov. Kathy Hochul recently announced an additional $2 million in state money to support suicide prevention efforts among veterans and uniformed personnel, including police and firefighters. The program provides funding for groups, including those servicing veterans, to implement mental health, trauma and suicide prevention training. 

Nationwide, about 7,000 veterans died by suicide in 2021, including about 140 in New York, according to a 2023 report from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, Newsday has reported.

Eric Meyer, a professor and director of the University of Pittsburgh’s Clinical Mental Health Counseling program, said the pressures of combat can create stressors on service members that, left untreated, can have tragic consequences. For nearly 20 years, he has worked with veterans suffering from PTSD.

“War zone service is really hard on families,” Meyer said. “It’s hard on people’s stability. It contributes to loss and grief. And creates the potential for disillusionment and a desire to act out.”

With AP

Robert Brodsky is a breaking news reporter who has worked at Newsday since 2011. He is a Queens College and American University alum.