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A Milwaukee man is accused of setting up a Burger King robbery with his teenage daughter that led to the death of a 16-year-old worker.
According to legal documents, on Jan. 2, Antoine Edwards arrived at the drive-thru of the restaurant in a black four-door Chevy Impala, where Niesha Harris-Brazell was working. When he first pulled up, he spoke to another worker briefly and pulled off. A few minutes later he returned and Harris-Brazell returned and opened the drive-thru window. He then climbed partially through the window in an attempt to commit the robbery. Harris-Brazell was complying. The moment that Edwards pulls off, Harris-Brazell collapses to the floor, but Edwards didn’t shoot her, according to court documents. A co-worker named Derrick Ellis saw the robbery and pulled out a firearm of his own and fired shots that hit Harris-Brazell twice, who was standing in between Edwards and Ellis.
Edwards didn’t plan this botched robbery on his own. Court documents say that Edwards planned it with his own 16-year-old daughter who was Harris-Brazell’s best friend.
The defendant’s daughter was at Burger King when police first responded to the shooting. At that time she did not divulge that what had happened was the result of botched staged robbery that she had helped plan. After the investigation continued and led to her being suspected, she was re-interviewed and admitted she had lied earlier. She now admitted that the robbery was staged to steal money and she was in on the plan. She said that the victim, NHB, was her best friend. The Impala driver, the defendant, Antoine Edwards, was her father.
Edwards’ claimed that Harris-Brazell was also in on the plan and she had sat with her and her father and planned it a few days earlier. In her statement, she said that since Harris-Brazell is usually assigned to the drive-thru window, she would stage the robbery at losing time since she had access to the cash register. Edwards’ daughter also worked at the Burger King in the kitchen and was there at the time of the robbery. Ellis was not aware of this plan.
In Edwards’ statement to police, he said his daughter didn’t play a role in the execution of the robbery. He claimed that he called his daughter and she handed the phone to Harris-Brazell and they planned the robbery together.
During a court appearance on Jan. 16, Edwards has been charged with felony murder, intentionally contribute/delinquency/death and possession of a firearm by a felon and is being held on $100,000 cash bond due to being considered a flight risk. Even though he didn’t shoot Harris-Brazell, his attempted robbery led to her death, resulting in his felony murder charge. He is also being held on a $5,000 cash bond due to being charged with possession of a firearm by a felon and misdemeanor disorderly conduct, use of a dangerous weapon. Ellis has also been taken into custody.
“My baby didn’t deserve that,” her mother Liceal Brazell told WISN 12. “She wasn’t out here in these streets. She went to school. She went to work. She came home.”
During a virtual court hearing, Hon. Barry Phillips, Milwaukee County court commissioner said:
The allegations in this complaint are serious, sad and unfortunate. Serious because a child lost their life, sad because a grownup was allegedly involved, his child and another child, in a robbery attempt and unfortunate, if the complaint is to be believed, according to the surviving members of this conspiracy, the alleged victim was also involved. A gun was pulled out, allegedly, and another person, who had no idea what was going on, made an attempt to protect himself and his co-workers from possible harm, and in the course of that, a child died.
Harris-Brazell’s family is denying that she was involved in the planning of the robbery. Over $40,000 was raised for her funeral through a GoFundMe campaign that is now closed.
