A man who robbed a busy coffee shop in South Richmond -- firing a bullet that narrowly missed one employee and threatening to shoot a customer -- pleaded guilty yesterday to robbery and a firearms charge.
Eddie James Edwards III, 21, will face up to life in prison when he is sentenced for last year's robbery at Crossroads Coffee and Ice Cream. About 10 customers were inside when it happened.
The robbery at 11:30 a.m. on Oct. 9 left witnesses shaken, and two customers assisted in a chase that ended after Edwards fired a round into a nearby home, Richmond prosecutor Elizabeth A. Hobbs said.
The incident was noteworthy for its boldness, Hobbs said, and because the coffee shop, which is in the 2600 block of Forest Hill Avenue, is a popular meeting spot.
"These people are essentially urban pioneers," Hobbs said, referring to the location of the coffee shop. "It's more than just your average Starbucks . . . it's a community center."
Hobbs gave the following account of the incident:
Edwards, wearing a black mask, walked into the coffee shop, gun drawn, and demanded money of three women behind the counter.
One woman refused, and Edwards fired a .38 Special revolver. The bullet went through a bag of coffee and into the wall about a foot from her head. Customers hit the floor. By that time, one man had shoved his wife into a bathroom and shut the door.
"She's tough," Hobbs said of the employee who refused to produce the money. "She's one of the toughest people I've encountered as a victim, and her gut reaction was outrage."
Edwards demanded money again, and the store owner, with hands raised, told Edwards: "I'll get you the money."
Edwards pounded on the cash registers impatiently.
He pointed the gun at a customer's head and told the owner, "Don't make me kill him."
The owner emptied two cash registers and put more than $400 in a white plastic bag and gave it to Edwards, who then fled on foot.
The man Edwards had threatened to shoot chased Edwards in a vehicle but lost sight of him. Another customer, who was outside, chased Edwards in a car while on the phone giving a 911 dispatcher updates each time he spotted the assailant.
Richmond police officer Daniel Awad spotted Edwards near the corner of Bland Street and Moody Avenue. Edwards was standing at the mouth of an alley, looking into the bag of money.
Awad got out of his car, and when Edwards saw him, he took off again, scaling a chain-link fence and running through a yard. As Edwards was about to jump another fence and Awad was climbing a fence after him, Edwards fired his gun into the house of a woman in her 80s. The bullet embedded in a coffee table in the living room.
Edwards kept running, but officers finally closed in and arrested him. He confessed to police.
Hobbs said witnesses were unnerved by the robbery. "There were people too upset to give their statements to police," she said.
Sentencing is set for Oct. 1.
Contact Reed Williams at (804) 649-6332 or rwilliams@timesdispatch.com.
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