ATV racing, illegal block parties, and now – a killing: What’s going on around this Mid-City bar?

Caroll Turner last spoke with her son Sunday evening when he got to work as a security guard at Wit’s Inn Bar in Mid-City. “You have a blessed night,” she told him. “Be safe.”

“That's the last word I said to him ...," she said, "the morning never came.”

Turner’s son, 53-year-old Darriel King, was shot dead just before midnight while on the job. He’d argued with a man at the bar, which only admits patrons 30 and up, and the man shot him, according to the New Orleans Police Department.

The shooter remains at-large, police said.

King’s killing has sparked renewed debate over what to do about Wit’s Inn and the strip of North Carrollton Avenue that houses it, a block that neighboring business owners and local politicians say has become a hub for free-wheeling, block-party events and lawlessness.

New Orleans City Council member Joe Giarrusso said the chief of the Mid-City Security District first told him of the shooting. Giarrusso noted that King was killed in an area of the city he has long been working to get under control.

“This one hurts a lot,” Giarrusso said. “It just feels like the situation here has just escalated.”

A year of complaints

Giarusso said business owners in the area have been reporting problems to the city and police for the last year about unpermitted events and parties with attendance in the hundreds, causing parking issues and excessive noise.

It started with parking. Giarrusso said he has received complaints about patrons at Wit’s Inn and Red Door, a bar across the street, parking on the Carrollton median, on sidewalks or in the road, blocking traffic and causing congestion.

Soon Giarrusso started getting complaints about huge crowds spilling out of the bars into the streets, often with some patrons brandishing weapons, urinating and littering in public.

Ivan Hinson owns and operates Wit’s Inn. He declined to comment on the record Tuesday. Kelly Holmes, who operates the Red Door Lounge, said she is actively working with the NOPD on the open investigation regarding King’s death. She declined further comment.

In October, the block made the news when a party bus and crowds — including many on horseback — stopped outside the Wit’s Inn to dance and drink. Neighboring business owners complained that the street was impassable and littered with horse feces and trash afterward. The same business owners said calls to 911 went unanswered.

Giarrusso said he asked the Department of Public Works to increase parking enforcement efforts in the area but city officials said they didn’t feel comfortable sending employees without police support after incidents in which they were threatened with weapons.

Mayor LaToya Cantrell issued a statement Tuesday evening, saying that in March, the city inspected Wit's Inn and found no "documented violation that warranted pursuing enforcement actions."?

"The owner of the Wit's Inn has made every effort to keep his staff and patrons safe," Cantrell said. "As a community, we have to stand up and strongly speak out for heroes like Darriel King ... We must also recognize the business owners in the Carrollton area who are striving every day to do the right thing in the City of New Orleans."

The NOPD issued a statement lamenting King's killing and concurring with the city's findings about calls for service regarding Wit's Inn, but the department said it will continue to monitor the situation.

Despite other efforts to tamp down crime in the area, Giarrusso said the lawlessness has continued. He regularly receives photos and videos of ATVs and dirt bikes ripping down Carrollton, he said.

Though it’s not clear if the alleged troublemakers are Wit’s Inn patrons, he said “the problem is the bar is creating the atmosphere.”

Calls for service to the 100 block of North Carrollton more than tripled last year, according to data collected by the New Orleans Police Department, jumping from 33 calls in 2022 to 110 in 2023.

So far this year, there have been 43 calls, according to NOPD.

Giarrusso said the solution is simple: “I need enforcement,” he said.

Remembering King

King’s mother said she’s upset about a lack of communication from city leaders. Since Sunday, hospital authorities are the only people to have contacted her about her son’s killing, she said Tuesday.

“I’m disappointed in that as a mother... and as a taxpayer,” she said.

King was a father of seven and had three grandchildren. He grew up in the St. Bernard area of New Orleans with four brothers and was an alumnus of Alfred Lawless High School. He was a jack of all trades, was driven to improve his community and was “smarter than your average Yogi bear,” Turner said.

State Rep. Matthew Willard said King was easy to love and “always going above and beyond.”

“He will be sorely missed,” Willard said. “We just pray really for an end to this violence.”

Despite her frustration and hurt, Turner said she is keeping her head high. She bears no hate in her heart for King’s killer. Instead, she said, she prays for them. Her faith in God is supporting her, as it did her son, an avid Gospel singer.

King was a “big man in stature but had a heart of gold … was always ready to protect,” she said.