BATON ROUGE - As the sun rose Thursday morning, the owner of the Coffee Bean Cafe on Coursey Boulevard arrived to open shop.

Instead, someone opened fire and shot him in the shoulder.

"At 6:30 in the morning? Waking up to get a cup of coffee? For that kind of violence to happen to a locally owned business is jarring and puts us all on edge," said Jenna Lemmon, who lives in Lake Sherwood, directly behind the business. 

Baton Rouge Police say the owner was likely shot as the result of an attempted armed robbery, which is not a common occurrence in this part of town.

"It's true we don't have that many calls for service in this area," said Chief Thomas Morse Jr.

Willy Reaux also lives in the neighborhood.

"I'm comfortable here. I don't have any problems, no issues. Every once in a while you have people that steal your tools that you leave in the garage, but that's about the most," said Reaux.

The WBRZ Investigative Unit checked the crime statistics for Baton Rouge Police District 3, Zone F2, which covers an area north of Coursey and east of Sherwood.

According to Open Data, police investigated 13 robberies last year, 20 In 2022, 12 In 2021 and 11 the year before.
That's up from four in 2019 and seven each in 2017 and 2018.

Open Data also shows even attempted murder investigations last year and eight in 2022. The total was a fraction of that in 2015, 16, 17 and 18.

"It's bad. I don't like hearing stuff like that. Kind of makes me feel uncomfortable," said Reaux. 

"I was shocked. You don't see shootings in our neighborhood. This is a very safe neighborhood. A lot of families. We actually have a lot of police that are in the neighborhood constantly patrolling so we feel like it's a pretty safe spot in Baton Rouge," said Lemmon.

Though the suspect fled before authorities arrived, BRPD did collect surveillance video from several businesses nearby.

"We're hoping that we will be able to get a solution and solve this very quickly," said Morse.

The victim's wife, who also operates the coffee shop, she said her husband is doing okay but will need to have surgery.