The Clover Grill waitress who was fatally shot early Thursday (May 16) outside the Bourbon Street diner was an “excellent employee,” said a spokeswoman for the restaurant and its owners.
Lawyer Darleen M. Jacobs said management is still checking into whether the 33-year-old woman who was killed had finished her shift shortly after midnight when New Orleans police say Alexander Kirby shot her in the face. The woman, who authorities have not identified, died at the hospital, police said.
An NOPD source with direct knowledge of the investigation said Kirby, also 33, was the woman’s ex-boyfriend. He has been booked on charges of second-degree murder and aggravated assault.
Jacobs, an attorney for Clover Grill’s owner Wood Enterprises, said the woman was shot in the restaurant’s courtyard. Restaurant management closed Clover Grill Thursday in honor of the woman, she said. A paper sign was taped to the window of the Grill, notifying customers it was temporarily closed.
“They’re devastated,” Jacobs said the restaurant’s management and owners.
The police source said the man came into the courtyard and immediately brandished a gun. A struggle ensued, the “gun goes off,” and the woman was shot, the source said. Jacobs, who also owns the building where Clover Grill is located, said no one at the restaurant could have anticipated the assault and shooting.
“It was a domestic dispute that went bad,” Jacobs said. “Due to (Kirby’s) actions, two lives have been ruined: that of our employee and his life.”
Frequent customer Kyle Pollio said Clover Grill is ingrained in the neighborhood. The people who work there were a big reason why, he said. The slain waitress’s familiarity with him and his neighbors helped make the 900 block of Bourbon Street, where his home and the restaurant are located, a close-knit community, he said.
Pollio said the slain waitress always knew his order: a BLT on wheat.
“She’s just a good person,” Pollio said. “It’s not about getting your order, it’s about seeing a friendly face.”
A man posted on Facebook early Thursday that he met the woman who was killed — a close friend — when he hired her at Café Lafitte in Exile, the bar across the street from Clover Grill that shares owners.
“Be free and rest where the angels of Lagniappe will Watch over you until the day I see you again,” he wrote.
Shortly after 8 a.m., Pollio lay a bouquet of yellow roses on the window sill at Clover Grill, a memorial to the waitress. He last talked with the woman last week. They talked about her Mardi Gras marching group.
By 10 a.m., more flowers had been placed in front of the restaurant. Uncleared drinks were still on the counter of the dark diner as of 6 a.m., and orders from just after midnight were hanging from the kitchen’s steel hood.
Clover Grill has operated at that spot for 65 years, Jacobs said. Thursday was the first time an employee had been assaulted at work, she said. She has leased the building to the restaurant’s owners for “many, many years,” she said, and no other police incident has occurred there in that time.
“I can assure you that Wood Enterprises and management of the Clover Grill will do everything that is possible to make sure the perpetrator is brought to justice,” Jacobs said.
Kirby is expected to appear in court later on Thursday.
https://www.nola.com
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