Chief says police fire fatal to bystander

LOS ANGELES — A supermarket worker was killed by a bullet fired by Los Angeles police — not the gunman they were trying to stop — the city’s police chief acknowledged Tuesday, defending the decision to use deadly force as an attempt to stop what officers feared could become a mass shooting.

The suspect, Gene Evin Atkins, 28, had already shot his grandmother, kidnapped his girlfriend and shot at officers Saturday afternoon as they chased his car and then as he ran into the Trader Joe’s in the city’s congested Silver Lake neighborhood, according to police.

After exchanging gunfire with police, Atkins ran into the store and took about 40 people hostage, police said.

Police released several minutes of body and dashboard camera video that showed Atkins leading officers on the highspeed chase before he crashed into a pole outside the market.

In deciding whether to open fire, officers had to consider whether the gunman was likely to harm the scores of shoppers and workers inside, Police Chief Michel Moore said.

It’s “every officer’s worst nightmare to harm an innocent bystander,” he said. “I spoke with the officers this morning — they’re devastated. They were devastated in the immediate aftermath of this event.”

“Those officers’ actions to stop him, the split-second decisions they had to make, I recognize how they will forever go through their lives debating whether that was what they had to do,” Moore said. “I believe it’s what they needed to do in order to defend … the people in that store and to defend themselves.”

As police chased the gunman after the car crash, one officer is heard on video saying she had pulled out her gun, but her partner tells her not to shoot.

However, two officers did fire back at Atkins just as the store’s assistant manager, Melyda Corado, 27, was walking out the door. One of the rounds went through her arm and into her body and she died at the scene, Moore said. No other bystanders were shot. Atkins was wounded in the arm.

Officers fired a total of eight shots, Moore said.

About three hours later, Atkins agreed to handcuff himself and walked out.

Hours earlier, police said, Atkins shot his grandmother, Mary Madison, seven times in her south Los Angeles home and kidnapped his girlfriend — who was grazed by a bullet, Moore said. The 76-year-old Madison remained in critical condition.

Atkins was charged Tuesday with murder, attempted murder, false imprisonment and dozens of other charges.

Information for this article was contributed by Alex Horton of The Washington Post.