BY TANYA BRICKING
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Clint Gardner spent the hours before his death working a double shift as a cook at a trendy restaurant.
In his typical style, the 26-year-old single dad volunteered to come in early Saturday because someone called in sick at the Courtyard Cafe On Main in Over-the-Rhine. He was still in a good mood by the end of the night, joking with the band before he left.
About an hour later, he was a block away at a girlfriend's Main Street apartment, dying of a gunshot wound.
Police arrested Lester Johnson Jr., 35, of the 1800 block of Knox Street, on a murder charge Monday night.
As homicides go, it was routine, homicide commander Lt. Mike Jones said. There was an argument early Sunday, and Mr. Gardner was shot about 2:40 a.m. Half an hour later, he was pronounced dead at University Hospital.
His friends say his life is worth remembering.
"He wasn't just an ordinary guy from the streets," said Greg Schnell, 24, a bartender who worked with him. "I took him and his son out to dinner one night. There was just an instant bond. His son was his life - great kid, too. He had a great heart. He was just a guy trying to make it."
Mr. Gardner, a Detroit native, was the son of a murder victim. His mother, Rita Gardner, was killed several years ago in Cincinnati in a domestic dispute, said his boss, Bob Traut, an owner of the Courtyard Cafe.
Mr. Gardner had custody of his son, Clint Jr., 7, a second-grader, and worked his schedule around his son's. "I guess his whole life was trying to make a better life for his son," Mr. Traut said.
He was a dependable cook who held the job for nearly three years, and he and his son lived in an apartment a block away on Walnut Street. Mr. Gardner was as friendly to neighborhood street people as to business owners, said Randy Bullock, 39, a lifelong Over-the-Rhine resident who hangs out at what's called The Rock Pile, a site across from Mr. Gardner's apartment where homeless people gather.
"He never bothered nobody," Mr. Bullock said. "And he always said 'Hi' to the people he knew. He was a well-respected guy. I liked him."
His death was the 26th homicide Cincinnati police have investigated this year. It is the second homicide in Over-the-Rhine in two weeks. And the area where Mr. Gardner died is often associated with the death of Michael Bany, a musician who was killed in December 1995 in a robbery after leaving a Main Street bar. Several Courtyard Cafe employees knew Mr. Bany as well.
"It's a shame," Mr. Traut said of Mr. Gardner's shooting. "It's just sad. It's such a waste."
Mr. Gardner's half brother, Ike Reese, an Aiken High School graduate who is a linebacker for the Philadelphia Eagles, flew into town Monday to make funeral arrangements. Services are pending. "We're just trying to hold it together," said Sandra Reese, of Westwood, Mr. Gardner's godmother.
Friends say Mr. Gardner was thoughtful and something of a poet. He could talk in rhymes and make people laugh. That's the way they want to remember him.
"I just don't want it to be one of those that in four days, people forget about him," Mr. Schnell said. "He wasn't that kind of person."
Anyone with information about the shooting is asked to call Crime Stoppers at 352-3040. Callers may remain anonymous.
