Balcony Bar mass shooting blamed on months-long dispute between rivals | Crime/Police

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Investigators suspect the mass shooting outside the Balcony Bar stemmed from a months-long dispute between one group of people and a rival they targeted as he left the lounge, a New Orleans police source said Saturday.

Six people were injured there Friday night when a motorist sprayed bullets into the crowd, drawing return fire from some customers. One of the wounded customers was identified by the police source as Nairobi Davis, 23, who had been a suspect in an Oct. 6 double homicide and, two months later, survived an attempt on his life. Davis and the other Balcony victims, four women and another man, were struck by bullets in the lower part of the body and taken to a hospital.

The police source said Davis and some associates were leaving the Balcony, 3201 Magazine St., at about 10:15 pm when his rivals, in a vehicle, spotted him and opened fire. Customers said a black car was the origin of about 50 gunshots, clearly intended for one person at the business, and the police source said Davis’ associates returned fire.

At least two women in the crowd were hit in the leg, and one of the women’s bones was sticking out of her leg from the gunshot wound, a bystander said. A Balcony employee said someone used a bar towel to apply pressure to a victim’s bullet-torn leg. “They said, ‘I never knew blood was so red,'” he recalled.

Crime scene tape is stretched across the 3200 block of Magazine Street in New Orleans after six people were shot at the Balcony Bar on Friday, April 29, 2022.

STAFF PHOTO BY GABRIELLA KILLETT

The bar employee, who asked not to be identified, said it had been a typical Friday night crowd, mostly local residents and college students. As the first shots erupted, everyone was a bit confused, he said, recalling how his mind processed the unfolding violence:

“Gunshots or fireworks?” he said. “Floor. Friends? OK. Outside. Blood. Lady shot. Belt on leg. Police.”

Another woman was walking from another bar to the Balcony when she heard gunshots. She said she quickly grabbed her friends, out-of-town visitors who suspected only fireworks, and they all ran the other direction to hide behind a metal trash bin.

“I didn’t know if they were coming back to finish up the job,” she said of the shooters.

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Inside the Balcony, customers said they weren’t allowed to leave until authorities arrived.

Emergency Medical Services took the four women victims, ages 35, 34, 32 and 23, to a hospital. Davis and the other male victim, 27, made it to a hospital on their own. Their conditions were not known Saturday.

Once paramedics got the injured off the scene, the Balcony employee said, it was time to pay attention to himself, with a visit to the sink and the bar:

“Wash blood off hands. Whiskey times 10,” he said.

Davis, for a time, was a suspect in the Oct. 6 killings of two construction workers outside a church at Annunciation and General Taylor streets. Two other workers were injured in an exchange of gunfire with people who ambushed them from a silver pickup truck. Police blamed a tit-for-tat fued between two groups, one of which included Davis, who was wounded in the shoulder.

Later, Davis was released on bond, and the charges against him were dropped, the police source said.

On Dec. 26, Davis survived what investigators suspect was an attempt on his life, the police source said. A white or silver pickup truck, one associated with Davis, was seen near the intersection of General De Gaulle Boulevard and Hendee Street in Algiers when somebody opened fire, killing a 7-year-old girl who was riding in another vehicle with her mother and sister.

Emma Discher and Gabriella Killett contributed to this report.

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