Calif. man gets 236-year sentence for role in Trader Joe’s shooting

The man responsible for holding customers and workers at a Los Angeles Trader Joe’s hostage in 2018, which resulted in the Los Angeles Police Department’s fatal shooting of an employee, was sentenced to more than 200 years in prison this week.

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Gene Evin Atkins was sentenced to 236 years to life in prison on Wednesday, the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office said. Atkins was found guilty of one count of second-degree murder in the fatal shooting of Melyda “Mely” Corado, who was an assistant manager at Trader Joe’s. 

“I’m happy it’s over,” Corado’s brother Albert Corado told SFGATE on Thursday. “Gene Atkins is going to spend the rest of his life in prison. [It] doesn’t make me happy. … I’m kind of indifferent to it because what really remains is that Mely is still not here.” 

Corado died during a nearly four-hour standoff between LAPD and Atkins at the Trader Joe’s in LA’s upscale Silver Lake neighborhood on July 21, 2018. Atkins led police to the Trader Joe’s store in a vehicle pursuit after he at his 77-year-old grandmother, which left her alive but injured. Atkins crashed into a power pole in front of the grocery store on Hyperion Avenue, firing shots at LAPD before running inside the store and holding more than two dozen customers hostage for hours, the DA’s office said in a June news release. LAPD officers returned fire as Atkins ran inside, hitting Corado. She was later pronounced dead at the scene once Los Angeles Fire Department personnel were able to enter and treat her, according to a  

In June, Atkins was also convicted on several charges, including three counts of attempted murder, six counts of assault with a semiautomatic firearm, and 24 counts of false imprisonment of a hostage, the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office said. He was retried in August after a jury deadlocked on the murder charge. 

“This defendant tried to kill two innocent people, engaged in a gun battle with police and held dozens of terrified people hostage, all of which led to the tragic death of Melyda Corado,” Nathan Hochman, the Los Angeles County district attorney, said in a statement. “Melyda would still be alive if not for the defendant’s deadly and reckless actions.”

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Corado’s family has long contended that the Los Angeles Police Department was primarily responsible for Corado’s death. The family filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the city of LA and the two police officers involved in the shooting in 2018, alleging multiple offenses that included excessive force and failure to adequately train officers, the Los Angeles Times reported. In 2024, the Corados were awarded a $9.5 million settlement.

“The LAPD chose to fire eight rounds into the Trader Joe’s,” Albert Corado told SFGATE. “They were the ones who caused Mely to die that day.”

He told SFGATE that his father had attended the sentencing hearings during the lengthy case to see “how the story ends,” but ultimately the family hopes to continue to privately honor Mely while publicly moving on from the family tragedy.

“This is kind of the last looming thing that ties us back to that day,” Corado said. “And so, yeah, I’m happy it’s over.”

Farley Elliott, SFGATE’s SoCal bureau chief, contributed to this report.