By admin LOS ANGELES (CNS) — A man who engaged in a gunfight with Los Angeles police outside a Trader Joe’s store in Silver Lake after a pursuit and crash, leading to a store assistant manager being fatally shot by an officer, was sentenced Wednesday to more than 200 years to life behind bars.
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Gene Evin Atkins, 36, was convicted of 41 counts, including second- degree murder, for the July 21, 2018, crime spree.
A jury convicted him in June of 40 counts, including 24 counts of false imprisonment of a hostage involving Trader Joe’s employees and customers, three counts of attempted murder and four counts of assault with a firearm on an officer.
That jury acquitted him of the most serious charge of first-degree murder and deadlocked 10-2 in favor of guilt on second-degree murder involving the death of Melyda “Mely” Maricela Corado, resulting in a retrial in which a second jury found him guilty Aug. 18 of second-degree murder and found true allegations that he personally used and discharged a firearm during the crime.
Outside court after the jury’s verdict in August, the 27-year-old victim’s father, Albert Corado, told reporters, “You know, whether Gene Atkins is found guilty or not, it doesn’t change the fact that Mely is still dead. She’s not coming back.”
He said he “learned the truth of what happened” by attending the two trials, adding that he was shocked to see a video of his daughter “dying” and taking her last breath after she was shot and that he has had to take medication.
“This verdict doesn’t change anything for me,” he said.
Of Atkins’ absence in the downtown Los Angeles courtroom during the retrial, Albert Corado said, “He’s a coward … He should have been here. I think the judge should have forced him to be here and face reality, face what he did.”
Deputy District Attorney Ben Schwartz told jurors in his closing argument in the retrial, “But for his (the defendant’s) actions, she (Melyda) would be alive. … It doesn’t get any more dangerous than that.”
The prosecutor noted that the officers and those near the Trader Joe’s saw Atkins get out of the blue Toyota Camry and immediately fire at police officers after crashing his grandmother’s vehicle near the store, saying that an expert also concluded that Atkins had fired first at the officers.
Atkins surrendered at about 6:30 p.m. that day, just over three hours after he ran inside the busy store.
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The prosecutor said the defendant had also fired at officers in two separate rounds of gunfire without police firing back as they chased him after being informed that he was being sought in his grandmother’s shooting earlier that day.
Atkins had also opened fire on a 17-year-old girl who had been in his bedroom before he shot his 76-year-old grandmother at the woman’s South Los Angeles home, then fled from police with the injured teenager in his grandmother’s car, Deputy District Attorney Ani Bailey had told jurors in the first trial.
Defense attorney Errol Cook urged the jury in Atkins’ retrial to acquit his client of murder, while acknowledging that the woman’s death was “an enormous tragedy.”
“He did not kill Ms. Corado,” he said.
Atkins’ attorney told jurors to set their anger aside and not to “transfer the blame.”
Cook acknowledged that his client had committed crimes, caused chaos and “terrified people,” but added that a gunbattle with police at the store’s entrance/exit doors was “not a natural and probable consequence” of his actions.
In a statement released shortly after Atkins’ murder conviction, Los Angeles County District Attorney Nathan Hochman said, “This defendant tried to kill two innocent people, engaged in a gun battle with police and held dozens of terrified people hostage, all of which led to the tragic death of Melyda Corado.”
Then-Los Angeles Police Department Chief Michel Moore confirmed in 2018 that the bullet that killed Corado was fired by an officer — not by Atkins.
Bailey noted that Atkins was charged with murder for Corado’s shooting under the “provocative act” theory, telling jurors in his first trial that his actions “caused a lethal danger,” resulting in the woman’s “tragic” death.
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