New details have emerged surrounding the last moments of former college football player Tiger Bech, who died in the New Orleans terror attack on January 1.
Bech, who was a wide receiver and punt returner for Princeton, was among the 14 people killed on Bourbon Street after a terrorist rammed his truck into a crowd.
And Bech’s family have since learned that he died while saving the life of a nearby woman.
Bech’s brother, Jack, shared a text message screenshot to X, which said that surveillance footage obtained by the FBI showed Bech pushing a woman out of the way of the truck to save her life.
Jack captioned the image: ‘My brother is a true hero. Can’t express the love I have for him. He’s an Angel.’
The post has received two million views and counting on X, with comedian Theo Von among those to respond with well-wishes.
Bech attended St. Thomas More Catholic High in Louisiana and starred on the football team
Bech earned All-Ivy honors as a punt returner at Princeton University
‘praying for your peace,’ he wrote.
The 27-year-old Bech died on New Year’s Day at a New Orleans hospital, according to local media outlets citing Kim Broussard, the athletic director at St. Thomas More Catholic High.
Bech attended the high school, where he played wide receiver, quarterback, punt returner and defensive back, NoLa.com reported.
He graduated from Princeton in 2021, and was most recently he was working as an investment trader at a New York brokerage firm Seaport Global.
Bech’s younger brother, Jack, is a top wide receiver at Texas Christian University.
Also among the victims in the tragic terror attack was a 25-year-old Superdome staffer.
Matthew Tenedorio, 25, was working as an audiovisual technician at the Saints’ home stadium.
Bech is seen playing for Princeton against the Brown Bears during an Ivy League matchup
Bech and 13 others were killed when Shamsud-Din Jabbar rammed this truck into a crowd
Darren Rizzi, who finished the season serving as the Saints’ interim coach, was also left panicked about the whereabouts of his own son, after seeing he wasn’t home on New Year’s Day. He later checked his location to see that he was sleeping at a friend’s house.
The driver of the truck, Shamsud-Din Jabbar, was fatally shot in a firefight with police after steering his speeding truck around a barricade and slamming into the crowd. About 30 people were injured.
The FBI recovered a black IS flag from Jabbar’s rented pickup and reviewed five videos posted to Facebook, including one in which he said he originally planned to harm his family and friends but was concerned news headlines would not focus on the ‘war between the believers and the disbelievers,’ Christopher Raia, the deputy assistant director of the FBI’s counterterrorism division, said.
Jabbar also stated he joined IS before last summer and provided a last will and testament, the FBI said.
Jabbar joined the Army in 2007, serving on active duty in human resources and information technology and deploying to Afghanistan from 2009 to 2010, the service said.
He transferred to the Army Reserve in 2015 and left in 2020 with the rank of staff sergeant.
