Gene Atkins Trader Joe’s Shooting Case: Verdict, Retrial, and Settlement

The Gene Atkins Trader Joe’s case ended in June 2026 with a jury convicting Atkins of 40 felony counts tied to a violent 2018 rampage and hostage standoff in Silver Lake, but acquitting him of first-degree murder in the death of assistant store manager Melyda “Mely” Corado, who was killed by a bullet fired by an LAPD officer during the confrontation. The jury deadlocked on a second-degree murder charge, and prosecutors have said they will retry him. Separately, the City of Los Angeles paid Corado’s family a $9.5 million settlement in 2024.

What Happened on July 21, 2018

Atkins, then 28, started the day by shooting his 76-year-old grandmother, Mary Elizabeth Madison, seven times at their South Los Angeles home. He also shot his 17-year-old girlfriend, Leah Williams, in the face at close range. Williams testified that just before he pulled the trigger, Atkins told her, “If I can’t have you, no one can.” Both women survived. Williams suffered lasting injuries including vision loss in her right eye, epilepsy from brain trauma, and bullet fragments permanently lodged in her skull.¹

Atkins put the wounded Williams in his grandmother’s car and drove for roughly 90 minutes while police tracked the vehicle by its LoJack.² When officers moved in, he fired at them, ran red lights, hit multiple vehicles, and tried to carjack a family at a gas station. The chase ended when he crashed into a utility pole about 15 to 20 yards from a Trader Joe’s on Hyperion Avenue in Silver Lake.³

How Mely Corado Was Killed

As Atkins ran from the wrecked car toward the store, he traded gunfire with two LAPD officers from the Hollywood Patrol Division, Sinlen Tse and Sarah Winans. Tse fired five rounds. One of them entered the store and struck 27-year-old Mely Corado, an assistant manager, as she ran toward the door. She died from the wound.⁴

In a compelled statement, Tse said he fired because he was “in fear for my life” and later learned that one of his rounds had “mistakenly killed Corado.”⁴ That fact — a bystander killed not by the suspect’s bullets but by a pursuing officer’s — became the central legal problem of the case.

The Standoff and Surrender

Wounded in the arm, Atkins fled inside the store, where roughly 30 employees and shoppers were present. He held the store at gunpoint and at one point ordered hostages to form a “human shield.”⁵ Twenty-one people hid in a back food-preparation closet and were never discovered.³

After more than three hours, police played a recorded message from Williams confirming she was alive and in surgery. Atkins agreed to surrender. Hostage MaryLinda Moss handcuffed him, placed his 9mm handgun in a Trader Joe’s reusable shopping bag, and walked out of the store with him and the last remaining hostages.³

Why Atkins Was Charged With Murder

Atkins was initially charged with 51 felony counts, including first-degree murder of Corado, even though he had not fired the fatal shot. Prosecutors relied on California’s “provocative act doctrine.” Under that theory, a defendant can be held responsible for a killing he did not personally commit if his own provocative conduct set off a chain of events in which the death was a natural and probable consequence.⁶

To convict, prosecutors had to prove that Atkins intentionally committed a provocative act during a crime, knew its probable consequences were dangerous to human life, acted with conscious disregard for that danger, and that Corado’s death was a natural and probable result of that act.² Their argument: by firing at officers and drawing return fire near a crowded store, Atkins created the lethal circumstances that killed Corado.

The defense pushed back on that link. Defense attorney Errol Cook, who took over just before jury selection, conceded Atkins was “probably good for” many of the counts but told jurors the police response was “haphazard and against LAPD policy” and that a reasonable person would not expect officers to fire into a crowded supermarket. Transferring blame for Corado’s death to his client, Cook argued, was “unfair.”² He presented no opening statement and called no witnesses.

The Verdict

The trial before Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Lisa B. Lench lasted 19 days.⁷ On June 9, 2026, after nearly five days of deliberation, the jury acquitted Atkins of first-degree murder. It deadlocked 10-2 in favor of guilt on second-degree murder.⁸

Jurors convicted him on 40 other counts:⁹

24 counts of false imprisonment of a hostage
6 counts of assault with a semiautomatic firearm
3 counts of attempted murder
2 counts of mayhem
2 counts of attempted carjacking
1 count of assault by means of force likely to produce great bodily injury
1 count of fleeing a pursuing peace officer’s vehicle while driving recklessly
1 count of driving or taking a vehicle without consent

Sentencing and the Coming Retrial

Atkins has not yet been sentenced. On the 40 convictions alone, he faces more than 80 years to life in prison.⁹ On June 26, 2026, prosecutors announced they would retry him on the second-degree murder charge. Deputy District Attorney Ben Schwartz said the decision came at the request of Corado’s father. The retrial is scheduled for August 3, 2026. Prosecutors will not retry a separate false imprisonment count on which the jury also deadlocked.¹⁰

Neither Officer Was Charged or Disciplined

The Los Angeles Police Commission and then-Chief Michel Moore found that the officers’ use of lethal force complied with department policy.⁵ In November 2020, the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Justice System Integrity Division concluded that Tse had acted in “lawful self-defense and defense of others” and was “not criminally responsible” for either Corado’s death or Atkins’s injuries. Ballistic testing confirmed Tse fired the fatal round, though the LAPD did not publicly identify him as the shooter.¹¹ Neither Tse nor Winans was charged or disciplined.

Moore called the incident “every officer’s worst nightmare.”⁷ The shooting drew scrutiny of LAPD pursuit and use-of-force tactics, including whether a high-speed chase was needed when the car could be tracked remotely and whether officers should have fired near a crowded store.¹²

The $9.5 Million Civil Settlement

Corado’s father, Salvador Albert Corado, and her brother, Albert Corado Jr., sued the City of Los Angeles and the officers for wrongful death and negligence, alleging they opened fire recklessly into a crowded store. In August 2024, the Los Angeles City Council unanimously approved a $9.5 million settlement. The family’s attorneys called it the largest pretrial settlement the city had ever paid in an LAPD shooting case.¹³ The family said in a statement, “Nothing will bring Mely back to us, and we are forever heartbroken by her violent death. We will keep her memory alive always.”⁸

1
Courthouse News Service. Woman Testifies About Shootings That Led to Trader Joe’s Hostage Standoff
2
Courthouse News Service. Criminal Trial of Man Whose Rampage Led to Fatal Police Shooting at Trader Joe’s Heads to Jury
3
CBS News. Trader Joe’s Hostages Share Tales of Terror, Heroism During Standoff With Gunman
4
Daily News. Suspect in Fatal Silver Lake Trader Joe’s Shooting Convicted of 40 Counts but Not Murder
5
NBC Los Angeles. Silver Lake Trader Joe’s Shooting Verdict
6
CBS News Los Angeles. Jury in Trader Joe’s Silver Lake Murder Trial Finds Defendant Not Guilty, Convicted on Other Charges
7
Los Angeles Times. Man Who Took Hostages at Trader Joe’s Acquitted of Murder in Case Where LAPD Killed Manager in Gun Battle
8
ABC7. Jurors Reach Verdict in Gene Atkins Trial Tied to 2018 Silver Lake Trader Joe’s Shooting Death of Melyda Corado
9
Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office. Man Convicted of 2018 Attempted Murders, Standoff at Trader Joe’s in Silver Lake
10
Daily News. Prosecutors to Retry Silver Lake Trader Joe’s Hostage-Taker on Second-Degree Murder Charge
11
Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office. JSID Officer-Involved Shooting Review: Atkins-Corado
12
The Guardian. Trader Joe’s Shootout: Police, Melyda Corado, LAPD
13
Los Angeles Times. Family of Trader Joe’s Store Manager Killed by LAPD Receives $9.5 Million Settlement