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Alert officer's actions leads to robbery charges

Alert officer leads to arrest in holdup.

Date published: 12/1/2008

BY KEITH EPPS

Fredericksburg police officer Jeff Wood suspected that the car he stopped late Sunday had been involved in a crime.

The four young men in the vehicle ended up being charged with a far more serious crime than what Wood initially suspected.

According to city police spokeswoman Natatia Bledsoe, the four are accused of an armed robbery at the East Coast gas station on Lafayette Boulevard that occurred shortly before Wood made the traffic stop.

Wood stopped the vehicle, a white Crown Victoria with temporary license plates, because its occupants had been accused of brandishing firearms outside a city restaurant earlier in the evening.

Bledsoe said police went to Claiborne’s Restaurant at 508 Lafayette Boulevard about 10:05 p.m.

Two employees reported that they were taking a break outside the restaurant when the Crown Victoria drove by slowly twice.

The car then stopped at the corner of Caroline and Charlotte streets and two young men got out. The two eventually walked toward Claiborne’s carrying handguns.

The employees rushed back inside the business and called police. A description of the vehicle was then broadcast, Bledsoe said.

At 10:40 p.m., Bledsoe said, a clerk at the East Coast station reported that he’d been robbed by two armed men wearing hoodies.

One stayed in front of the counter while the other forced the clerk to give him money from a cash drawer. Both had their guns pointed at the clerk, Bledsoe said.

The clerk never saw a vehicle, Bledsoe said, but a pizza delivery driver saw a white Crown Victoria pull out of a shopping center across from the gas station and pick up two people who were running down Lafayette Boulevard.

Wood was one of numerous officers heading for the East Coast station when he spotted the car turning onto U.S. 1 from Twin Lakes Drive.

Wood didn’t know at the time that a car matching that description had been seen leaving the area of the robbery, Bledsoe said. But he was aware of the Claiborne’s incident.

Bledsoe said that if not for the brandishing incident at Claiborne’s, Wood would not have stopped the car.

Wood pulled the vehicle over on Learning Lane near two city schools and waited for backup. A pile of money and three guns were found in the vehicle.

Three 18-year-old Spotsylvania residents—Eric Lamar Caldwell, Jerome Lamonte Johnson and Matthew Ausby Meadows—were charged with robbery, as was 20-year-old Ashton Lee Brooks of Fredericksburg.

Caldwell was driving the car, police said, while Brooks and Meadows are suspected of being the gunmen.

Bledsoe said the investigation is continuing and more charges are pending. Keith Epps: 540/374-5404 kepps@freelancestar.com

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Date published: 12/1/2008

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