L.A. chief says police, not gunman, fired fatal shot at market
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, already had shot his grandmother, kidnapped his girlfriend and shot at officers Saturday afternoon as they chased him in car and then as chased him 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.
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.
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 gunshots, Moore said.
“This is one of those tragic situations that is kind of a loselose situation for the police,” he said.
Atkins — dressed in a blue jail-issued shirt — made an initial court appearance Tuesday, but was not represented an attorney and did not enter a plea. Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Gustavo Sztraicher set bail at $18.7 million. Atkins’ arraignment was postponed until next month.