2 charged in shooting of Tacoma barista who refused to give robbers money
Nearly three years after a barista was brutally beaten and shot at a Tacoma coffee stand during a botched robbery, two people have been charged in the attack.
On Monday, Pierce County prosecutors charged Rigoberto Alvarado Jr., 26, and Dominique Reyes, 24, with first-degree assault, attempted first-degree robbery, first-degree burglary, second-degree unlawful possession of a firearm, residential burglary, first-degree conspiracy to commit robbery and theft of a motor vehicle.
Reyes pleaded not guilty to the charges and was ordered held on $50,000 bail.
Alvarado has not yet been arraigned. He is being held at a King County jail after being charged in a fatal shooting March 31 at an auto-repair shop in Auburn, two weeks after being released from prison.
Both defendants are felons (Alvarado has 13 prior felony convictions) and prohibited from possessing weapons, records show.
Charging papers in the Tacoma assault give this account:
A 20-year-old barista was working alone July 31, 2017, at a coffee stand in the 1900 block of Marine View Drive.
She heard a loud boom just before an armed woman jumped through the stand’s window.
The would-be robber assaulted the barista for about five minutes trying to get her to open the cash register and safe, but the barista refused.
During the scuffle, the barista hit the robber over the head with a cup and the robber shot her in the leg before stealing cash from the tip jar, records say.
The robber fled to a Ford Mustang waiting outside with a man behind the wheel.
Police responding to the holdup found the car crashed and abandoned less than a mile from the scene.
Witnesses reported seeing two people running into a nearby wooded area.
A K-9 track found the suspects scaled a razor-wire fence and crept into a Northeast Tacoma neighborhood, where they allegedly stole a Toyota RAV 4 from a 76-year-old woman’s garage.
The woman had left the keys in the car while she was inside for 10 minutes.
Home surveillance footage showed a man and shirtless woman stealing the SUV.
A bloodied, ripped pink tank top was found near the razor-wire fence.
Forensic testing later linked the tank top to Reyes.
Alvarado’s fingerprints were found on the Ford Mustang’s window and on a liquor bottle inside, records say.
The Mustang had been stolen from Federal Way earlier that day.
Detectives who watched surveillance footage of the attempted robbery at the Tacoma coffee stand called it “gruesome.”
“The woman struck (the barista) over 50 time and continued to beat on her even after she had been shot,” prosecutors wrote in charging papers.
No one was immediately arrested for the attack on the barista, but after forensic test results came back, police visited Reyes in July 2018 while she was in prison.
When told officers wanted to speak with her about a crime in Tacoma the previous year, she allegedly asked if her ex-boyfriend had “snitched” on her.
She “dropped her head and began crying” when detectives asked if she intentionally shot the barista, according to charging papers.
Reyes’ ex-boyfriend, who was killed in Tacoma in July 2018, allegedly told police Reyes and Alvarado were responsible for a string of coffee stand robberies in the summer of 2017.
On the night the barista was shot, the ex-boyfriend claimed he picked Reyes up near the scene and took her to a hospital to be treated for multiple cuts on her arms from the razor-wire fence.
Hospital surveillance footage showed her seeking treatment and using a false name, court records say.
This story was originally published April 28, 2020 at 11:35 AM.
