A 57-year-old man faces 18 counts of negligent injuring after authorities say he drove into a crowd of parade-goers celebrating the Lao New Year in New Iberia, Louisiana, on Saturday, sending more than a dozen people to area hospitals, some by medical helicopter.
Todd Landry of Jeanerette was arrested at the scene after his vehicle struck multiple pedestrians at the intersection of Savannakhet Street and Melancon Road, Fox News Digital reported. Louisiana State Police said Landry showed signs of impairment and blew a 0.137% blood alcohol concentration, roughly 71 percent above Louisiana's legal limit of 0.08%.
The Iberia Parish Sheriff's Office said some of the injuries are believed to be serious. Authorities stressed, however, that the crash does not appear to have been deliberate.
The Lao New Year Festival draws families and revelers to the small Cajun town of New Iberia, located about 30 minutes from Lafayette in southern Louisiana. Saturday's parade was well underway when Landry's vehicle struck the crowd.
Acadian Ambulance reported dispatching ten ambulances and two helicopters to the crash site. Eleven patients were transported by ground ambulance, while two others required airlift to hospitals. The New York Post reported that at least 15 people were injured before Landry was taken into custody.
Video shared on social media appeared to show multiple people on the ground as firefighters worked to free a person trapped underneath a vehicle in a ditch. The footage underscored the scale of the emergency response in a community unaccustomed to mass-casualty events.
As communities across the country grapple with violent crime that shatters public safety, Saturday's incident in New Iberia is a reminder that reckless behavior behind the wheel can produce devastation on the same scale as any premeditated act.
Louisiana State Police laid out the case against Landry in a news release. He was booked on charges of driving while impaired, 18 counts of first-degree negligent injuring, careless operation, and having an open container of alcohol in the vehicle.
Breitbart cited the State Police statement describing the arrest:
"During the Lao New Year Parade, the vehicle Landry was driving struck multiple pedestrians. During the investigation, Landry showed signs of impairment and ultimately submitted a breath sample indicating a BAC of 0.137g%."
The 0.137% reading means Landry was allegedly well past the threshold at which Louisiana law considers a driver legally impaired. Open-container charges suggest alcohol was accessible inside the vehicle at the time of the crash.
Authorities have not disclosed whether Landry has prior DWI offenses. That gap matters. Louisiana's penalties for repeat impaired-driving offenses escalate sharply, and the public has a right to know whether the system had a prior chance to keep a dangerous driver off the road.
Rebecca Melancon, spokesperson for the Iberia Parish Sheriff's Office, addressed public concern about motive. AP News quoted Melancon directly:
"Based on the preliminary investigation, this does not appear to be an intentional act."
That distinction matters in a post-2016 era when vehicle-ramming attacks on crowds have become a recurring fear at public gatherings worldwide. The sheriff's office moved quickly to tamp down speculation, and the impairment evidence supports the conclusion that this was a case of alleged drunk driving rather than targeted violence.
Still, the outcome for the victims is no less severe because the driver's intent was allegedly impaired rather than malicious. Families who came out to celebrate a cultural holiday ended the day in emergency rooms, some airlifted to trauma centers. The consequences of one man's alleged decision to drink and drive fell on an entire community.
Incidents like this reinforce the importance of holding individuals accountable for reckless conduct, a principle that applies whether the threat comes from premeditated plots against public safety or from someone who allegedly chose to get behind the wheel after drinking.
The sheer volume of first responders dispatched to the scene speaks to the severity of the crash. Ten ambulances and two medical helicopters converged on a single intersection in a town that sits in rural Iberia Parish. Newsmax reported that the driver was arrested quickly, suggesting bystanders or officers on scene for the parade were able to intervene before Landry could flee.
No fatalities have been reported as of the latest available information, but the sheriff's office described some injuries as believed to be serious. The names and conditions of the victims have not been released.
New Iberia is a tight-knit community. The Lao New Year celebration reflects the cultural diversity of southern Louisiana, where Southeast Asian communities have deep roots dating back decades. That a joyful public event was shattered by an alleged drunk driver will leave a mark well beyond the physical injuries.
Public safety at parades and festivals has become a growing concern nationwide. From the deadly Christmas parade attack in Waukesha, Wisconsin, in 2021 to the New Year's Day attack in New Orleans in 2025, Americans have watched vehicles turned into instruments of mass harm. While Saturday's crash in New Iberia appears to lack the deliberate intent of those incidents, it exposes the same vulnerability: crowds gathered in open streets have almost no protection from a vehicle that leaves the roadway.
The question for local officials is whether adequate barriers or traffic controls were in place along the parade route, and whether those measures could have prevented a vehicle from reaching the crowd. That question remains unanswered.
Landry faces serious charges. Eighteen counts of first-degree negligent injuring alone carry significant potential prison time under Louisiana law. The open-container charge, while minor by comparison, paints a damning picture of the circumstances inside the vehicle.
Louisiana State Police are leading the investigation, with the Iberia Parish Sheriff's Office assisting. Whether additional charges follow, or whether the count of negligent injuring rises if more victims come forward, remains to be seen.
For the families affected, the legal process is just beginning. The people who lined Savannakhet Street on Saturday did so to celebrate a new year. They deserved to go home safely. The justice system now owes them a full accounting of how and why that didn't happen, and, just as important, whether anything in Todd Landry's record should have kept him off the road before he allegedly turned a parade route into a disaster scene.
As communities across America confront threats to public safety from individuals who disregard the law, the principle remains the same: accountability is not optional, and the people who follow the rules should never be the ones who pay the price.
Fifteen people went to a parade. A man allegedly went to a bottle. The law exists for exactly this moment, and it had better work.
