Good Guy with a Gun #77: Topeka, KS
Original incident: January 5, 2024. Being a Good Guy with a Gun doesn't mean you have to pull the trigger. Sometimes you resolve a situation with no shots fired.
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Rob a Walgreens in Topeka, and you’ll wish you weren’t in Kansas anymore.
40-year-old Edward C. Beddingfield Jr. found that out the hard way when he robbed the store and threatened people. Who knows what else he’d have done if an armed Topekan hadn’t needed some last-minute things? The citizen-hero put a stop to Beddingfield’s crimes and held him at gunpoint until Topeka PD arrived.
Beddingfield was booked for aggravated theft, aggravated assault, interfering with law enforcement, and theft. I wonder if he’s thinking: There’s no place like home . . .
Sources
I have found only one local news source for this incident: 13 WIBW.
John Lott’s Crime Prevention Research Center (CPRC) also included it in a roundup of 28 defensive gun uses (DGUs) for January of 2024.
I grew up in Lawrence, just a short ways away. Always nice to hear when Kansas sometimes does the right thing; it's a schizophrenic state and you never know . . .