NEW ORLEANS — A who’s who of local leaders, ordinary New Orleanians and visitors packed Mandina’s in a show of support for the restaurant.
Orleans District Attorney Jason Williams is a regular customer at the restaurant.
He said the level of violence in the city is now at an all-time high.
“Rome is burning, Rome is absolutely burning,” Williams said before entering the restaurant. “We cannot allow this sense of lawlessness to continue in a place we love.”
Friday night, two people got out of a car and sprayed bullets at a server, 23-year-old Hilbert Walker III, killing him. Walker was waiting on customers at an outside table at the time of the shooting. A stray bullet went through the restaurant's wall and wounded a woman dining inside.
The second victim is a tourist from Chicago, in town for Jazz Fest and to celebrate a friend's birthday at Mandina's when she was shot.
"I want to be here this morning just to have lunch at one of my favorite places,” Williams said. “I’m standing with them. I’m going to work with the homicide unit to make sure we find out who did this.”
Monday, Susan Gilbeault and Teri Cain were back at Mandina’s. They were inside the restaurant having dinner when gunfire suddenly erupted.
“It was a wonderful evening until we heard, tat, tat, tat, tat, three times and everybody screaming get down, it was surreal,” Gilbeault said.
“This restaurant and what it represents is so important because this doesn’t just happen here,” Cain said. “I don’t live here. I live in Colorado; it happens all over the place and everybody that experiences this kind of thing needs to stand up to evil.”
In response to the shooting, Mandina’s will now have two armed guards on duty. Friday night, a guard shot at the alleged killers, but they escaped and remain at-large.
“Just unfortunate it happened during Jazz Fest,” customer Scott Schlesinger said. “That’s the thing because everybody around the world is going to think that we’re going around shooting each other, which is not the case.”
“You never know what can happen and you never know what you’ve got to watch out for and just be safe and just love your people,” Brian Davidson said. “That’s all I can really say.”
Monday, Mandina’s released this statement:
On behalf of all involved in the operation of Mandina’s Restaurant, we would like to thank everyone for their incredible outpouring of support over the last few days. It’s obvious New Orleans loves Mandina’s and we at Mandina’s love you right back.
The loss of our friend and fellow worker Hilbert Walker III, has been devastating to our entire restaurant family. He will be greatly missed.
We are praying for the continual recovery of the victim hit by the stray bullet.
Our thoughts and prayers are with both families.
We would like to publicly thank our security officer who was a hero Friday night.
Please allow us to regroup as we set our course going forward and do what we do, serve food.
Thank you and God Bless.
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