LAPD Officer Testifies Gunman Was Shooting at Police

LAPD Officer Testifies Gunman Was Shooting at Police

by Contributing Editor

A man charged with getting into a gunbattle with pursuing officers that resulted in a Trader Joe’s assistant manager being shot by police had fired first at officers during a car chase and then again after a traffic collision in front of the Silver Lake store, a Los Angeles police officer testified Thursday.

During a court hearing for Gene Evin Atkins, Officer Sinlen Tse identified the 29-year-old defendant as the man who had shot at him and his female partner during the July 21, 2018, chase and after Atkins allegedly crashed into a car near the Trader Joe’s store.

“When he came out (of the car) he pointed a gun at us and began firing,” the officer said of the aftermath of the collision. “I returned fire in order to defend myself.”

The officer testified that he initially shielded himself from the gunfire by using his the driver’s side door of the patrol car as cover and that he subsequently moved to a wall that was about four feet high because it provided better coverage.

He said the officers stopped returning fire after Atkins went inside the store, but said he subsequently heard a gunshot hit a pole near the officers.

“We knew that the suspect was firing at us from inside the Trader Joe’s,” the officer said, noting that officers had not returned fire during the chase.

Tse — who was identified last year by police as one of the two officers “involved” in the officer-involved shooting — is set to resume his testimony Tuesday. Police did not specify whether Tse or fellow Officer Sarah Winans fired the shot that struck Corado, traveling through her arm and into her body.

Atkins was also struck in his left forearm during the gunbattle, police said.

Los Angeles Superior Court Judge M.L. Villar is expected to rule next week whether there is sufficient evidence to require Atkins to stand trial on 51 counts, including a murder charge stemming from the death of Melyda Maricela Corado, who was fatally wounded in front of the store in the 2700 block of Hyperion Avenue on July 21, 2018.

Atkins, who is jailed in lieu of $15.1 million bail, is also charged with attempted murder, attempted murder of a peace officer, assault on a peace officer with a semiautomatic firearm, kidnapping, fleeing a pursuing peace officer’s motor vehicle while driving recklessly, grand theft of an automobile, discharge of a firearm with gross negligence, shooting at an occupied motor vehicle, false imprisonment of a hostage and mayhem.

Los Angeles Police Department Chief Michel Moore confirmed last year that the bullet that killed Corado was fired by a police officer, not Atkins, who surrendered to SWAT officers after about three hours of negotiations following a standoff inside the store, where a number of customers and employees were allegedly held hostage.

Though he did not shoot Corado, Atkins is charged with her killing under the theory that he set off the chain of events that led to the 27-year-old woman’s death.

One of Corado’s co-workers, Victor Robles, identified Atkins as the man armed with a gun who had come into the Trader Joe’s store following the crash and series of gunshots.

Atkins — whom he described as “nervous” and “angry” and later as “shaking a little bit” and “very pale” — subsequently ordered him to bring him a bottle of alcohol and to round up other people inside the store, the witness said.

Robles grew emotional after the prosecutor played a surveillance videotape depicting Corado before the crash and then returning to the store and slumping to the ground behind the manager’s desk.

“Do you see Mely behind the desk now?” Mokayef asked.

“Yes,” the witness responded, with the judge subsequently asking if the witness needed a moment and then instructing Mokayef to take the image off a courtroom screen.

The Trader Joe’s employee said Atkins told him that he could either leave the store or pick someone else to leave during the standoff.

“I picked this young kid,” Robles said, noting later that the boy was “just a child” and “shouldn’t have been there in the first place.”

The defendant — who was bleeding from a gunshot wound — subsequently ordered him to lock the store’s front sliding glass doors, and that Atkins subsequently agreed to allow him to open the doors to allow an older woman to leave the store, Robles testified.

A Trader Joe’s customer was helping to stop Atkins’ wound from bleeding, and was holding a phone on which the defendant was speaking with a police negotiator, the store employee said.

He said Atkins waved his gun around and threatened that someone was going to leave in a body bag unless two police sharpshooters got off a nearby roof, which they did. Atkins also was angered by an armored vehicle that pulled up in front of the store, the witness said.

Katsura Quaid, a Trader Joe’s customer who was inside the store, said she thought she “was going to be killed” and started crying while trying to hide. She said she went to the store’s front door after another customer asked if Quaid could leave the store.

“I think he (the defendant) said, `Stop!” she testified, adding that police were yelling at her to come out of the store and that she ran from the store after seeing a nod from the customer who was talking with Atkins.

Paige White described being involved in a traffic collision in Silver Lake and subsequently saw the other motorist with a gun outside his window.

“I saw someone holding a gun shooting,” she testified.

“You thought the suspect was shooting at you?” defense attorney Michael Morse asked on cross-examination.

“Yes,” the witness responded.

The woman said she could not identify the gunman.

Another witness, Michael Anticoli, testified that he was standing on a pedestrian island waiting to cross the street when he witnessed a collision and then saw and heard gunfire as one of the vehicles was making a “very intense U-turn.”

“During the U-turn, the driver’s side window had been rolled down and a gun was firing towards me but to the police cars behind me,” he said, telling the judge that he could not identify the gunman.

Atkins allegedly shot his 76-year-old grandmother and his 17-year-old girlfriend in South Los Angeles in the hours leading up to the pursuit.

At a hearing in April, Mary Madison testified that the grandson she had raised from the age of 7 shot her point-blank in the chest that day, then asked her where to find her car keys.

She said she had never seen Atkins with a gun and had no idea how he got it, but said he had been agitated earlier in the day and the two “had words” over him and his girlfriend lazing around Madison’s house.

At that hearing, Madison testified that her grandson “had a real bad temper at times” and said she had taken him at about age 8 or 9 to a therapist. She said she wasn’t aware of any other treatment since then and didn’t know if he was under the influence of anything on the day of the store shooting.

Madison said she underwent multiple surgeries, spent months in rehabilitation and now needs either a wheelchair or a walker to get around.

At a court hearing in December, Atkins told the judge that he has no criminal record, but has an “extensive mental health record” that includes a diagnosis of “bipolar disorder and a list of other disorders, as well.” He unsuccessfully tried to plead insanity at that hearing.

He told a judge in February that he was a prophet “sent here by Jesus” and didn’t understand anything, and an attorney was subsequently appointed to represent Atkins, who had been acting as his own lawyer. He lost his bid to replace his attorney just before his latest hearing began.

Relatives of Corado filed a lawsuit Nov. 29 against the city of Los Angeles and two LAPD officers, saying they were still seeking answers about the shooting that the city and police department have refused to provide.

Attorney John C. Taylor, representing Corado’s father and brother, called it an “out-of-policy” shooting. He said Trader Joe’s had no liability in the shooting and that the store “was as much a victim as Mely Corado.”

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All credit goes to Contributing Editor
Originally published on https://mynewsla.com