LOS ANGELES—A man accused of engaging in a gunfight with police that resulted in the death of an assistant manager at a Trader Joe’s in Silver Lake in 2018 will be allowed to act as his own attorney, a judge said Nov. 3.
Superior Court Judge Lisa B. Lench noted that the case has “some very complicated legal issues” and that she thought it was a “really bad idea” for Gene Evin Atkins to represent himself.
The 32-year-old defendant responded that he still wanted to go forward with representing himself.
Police officers escort people after a suspect barricaded inside a Trader Joe’s supermarket in the Silverlake neighborhood of Los Angeles, on July 21, 2018. (ROBYN BECK/AFP/Getty Images)
Atkins—who was found mentally competent to stand trial—had briefly acted as his own attorney for about three months after being charged with murder for allegedly setting off a chain of events on July 21, 2018, that led to the death of Melyda “Mely” Maricela Corado, who was fatally shot by a police officer in front of the store in the 2700 block of Hyperion Avenue….