A California man is facing life in prison after a jury found him culpable for the death of an innocent bystander.
A jury found Gene Evin Atkins, 36, guilty of second-degree murder on Tuesday in connection with a standoff that took place at a Trader Joe’s grocery store in the Silver Lake neighborhood of Los Angeles, California, in 2018. In a press release, Los Angeles County District Attorney Nathan Hochman said Atkins’ “deadly and reckless actions” caused the death of 27-year-old Melyda “Mely” Corado, a store manager at the Trader Joe’s whom a police officer shot.
A jury found Atkins guilty of a number of other felonies in connection with the incident during a trial in June, but the jury deadlocked on the murder charge.
According to reporting by Los Angeles-based CBS affiliate KCBS, Corado’s father successfully requested a retrial on the murder charge.
The guilty verdict came eight years after the events of July 21, 2018, when Atkins launched his crime spree at his grandmother’s home in South Los Angeles. Atkins got into an argument with his then-76-year-old grandmother and his then-17-year-old girlfriend. During the fight, Atkins shot both of them before stealing his grandmother’s car and leading police on a chase that ended at Trader Joe’s.
Hochman said Atkins attempted to carjack someone at a gas station, but failed. During a press conference shortly after the incident, then-Los Angeles Police Department Chief Michel Moore said Atkins fired on the police who were chasing him before he crashed into a pole by the Trader Joe’s.
Atkins got out of his car and fired on police as he ran into the store, which prompted LAPD officers to shoot back. Atkins sustained a non-life-threatening gunshot wound to the arm. While aiming at Atkins, Moore said “one of the officers’ rounds struck Ms. Corado as she was exiting the market and was in close proximity to Atkins. Ms. Corado ran back into the store and collapsed behind the manager’s desk.”
Fellow Trader Joe’s employees dragged Corado outside so paramedics could treat her, but efforts to save her life failed. Corado’s family sued the LAPD and the officers who fired the fatal shots, and the city of Los Angeles awarded them a $9.5 million settlement in September 2024.
Atkins kept police in a standoff at the Trader Joe’s for over three hours, all while holding several store employees and customers hostage inside.
At his trial in June, a jury found Atkins guilty of 40 charges against him: three counts of attempted murder, six counts of assault with a semiautomatic firearm, 24 counts of false imprisonment of a hostage, two counts each of attempted carjacking and mayhem and one count each of assault by means of force likely to produce great bodily injury, fleeing a pursuing peace officer’s vehicle and driving or taking a vehicle without consent.
He is scheduled to be sentenced on Aug. 24.
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