Wave Wire Services
LOS ANGELES — A man who engaged in a gunfight with Los Angeles police outside a Silver Lake Trader Joe’s store following a pursuit in 2018, leading to a store assistant manager being fatally shot by an officer, was convicted Aug. 18 of second-degree murder.
Gene Evin Atkins, 36, was convicted in June of 40 other counts, but the first jury to hear his case deadlocked on the second-degree murder charge, leading to the retrial.
Jurors spent about three hours in deliberations before returning their verdict, which included the panel finding true allegations that Atkins personally used and discharged a firearm during the crime.
Sentencing was tentatively scheduled for Aug. 24, although the hearing is likely to be delayed to another date.
The case stemmed from the July 21, 2018, shooting death of assistant store manager Melyda “Mely” Maricela Corado, 27, who was caught in the crossfire as Atkins fled into the Trader Joe’s after crashing his grandmother’s car in front of the store.
The first jury to hear the case against Atkins deliberated about three days before finding him guilty June 9 of 24 counts of false imprisonment of a hostage involving Trader Joe’s employees and customers, along with counts of assault with a firearm on an officer, three counts of attempted murder, two counts each of mayhem, assault with a semiautomatic firearm and attempted carjacking. But that panel acquitted him of the most serious charge of first-degree murder and deadlocked 10-2 in favor of guilt on second-degree murder involving Corado’s shooting death.
He was also found guilty in June of one count each of fleeing a pursuing peace officer’s motor vehicle while driving recklessly, assault by means of force likely to produce great bodily injury and driving or taking a vehicle without consent.
Outside court after the verdict, the 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.”
The judge noted Atkins had refused to come to court Aug. 18, but said he will be ordered to show up in court next week.
Deputy District Attorney Ben Schwartz told jurors in his closing argument Aug. 17 in the retrial, “:But for (the defendant’s) actions, she would be alive. … It doesn’t get any more dangerous than that.”
He 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.
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.
Defense attorney Errol Cook urged the panel 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, telling jurors to set their anger aside and not to “transfer the blame.”
Cook told the panel 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.
Atkins has not been in the downtown Los Angeles courtroom for any of his retrial, but he is expected to be ordered to attend his sentencing hearing, whenever that occurs.
