Bert Atienza, a 77-year-old man, was punched and kicked inside a Norfolk, Virginia, Walmart after confronting a teen employee about nearly hitting his wife with a shopping cart, and now two parents face second-degree murder charges while his widow grieves a 42-year marriage ended by senseless violence.
Atienza and his wife Josephine had just come from church on June 7 and stopped at the Walmart on North Military Highway to pick up groceries. A 17-year-old employee tore down an aisle with a heavy cart and nearly struck Josephine. The teen never apologized. Bert Atienza, a man his wife described as someone who spoke his mind regardless of who stood in front of him, confronted the girl.
What followed was an argument, and then, according to Josephine Atienza, the teen threw a can toward the couple as they walked away. She then called her parents. Minutes later, Travis White, 44, and Erika Mitchell, 42, arrived at the store. They are the teen's mother and father. And according to the widow's account and charges now on file, they did not come to talk.
Josephine Atienza told the New York Post that the adults crowded her husband in a store aisle. One of them hit him in the face. He was shoved from behind, grabbed, and slammed into a shelving unit. He collapsed to the floor.
It did not stop there. Josephine described what happened next:
"While he's on the floor, they're still kicking him and I told them stop. My husband has heart problems."
She knelt beside him, his head in her lap, blood coming from his mouth. He was still conscious at first.
"My husband was still able to speak, he said, 'Help me, get up,' but I told him, 'no you're bleeding. Your mouth is bleeding. Ambulance is coming.'"
Then she watched him slip away. "I look at him again. He has no more consciousness," she said.
Paramedics rushed Bert Atienza to a hospital. He died the following day, June 8, from blunt head trauma. Medical officials ruled his death a homicide.
White and Mitchell were arrested days after the attack. They were initially charged with malicious wounding by mob, aggravated malicious wounding, and conspiracy to commit a felony, serious charges, but ones that did not reflect the fact that a man was dead. Court records viewed by the Post show prosecutors later upgraded those charges to second-degree murder. Both are held without bond in the Norfolk jail.
Their 17-year-old daughter, whose name has been withheld because of her age, faces her own set of charges: assault and battery, aggravated malicious wounding, and conspiracy to commit a felony. She is being held at the Norfolk Juvenile Detention Center. She no longer works for Walmart.
The conspiracy charge against all three members of the family is notable. Prosecutors appear to be treating the sequence, the teen's call to her parents, their arrival, and the attack, as a coordinated act, not a random eruption.
James Broccoletti, the defense attorney representing White and Mitchell, offered a sharply different version. He told WTKR the parents went to the store only to check on their daughter, who was upset:
"They did not go there, intending for any of this to happen. It was an emotional situation. Their daughter called them. She was distraught. They went, as any parent would do, to try to make sure that their daughter was safe and then the situation kind of erupted. It was spontaneous almost."
Broccoletti went further, arguing the evidence supports nothing more than a misdemeanor:
"We think that the evidence establishes at best an assault because they punched the gentleman, there is some evidence my client may have kicked him, but that's simple assault, that's a misdemeanor. There is nothing that goes further than that, that indicates that there was any chance or likelihood or probability that this man would die as a result of this."
That argument asks a jury to believe that two adults punching and kicking a 77-year-old man on a store floor carried no foreseeable risk of death. Prosecutors, by upgrading to second-degree murder, have signaled they disagree.
Josephine Atienza, who had been married to Bert for more than four decades, described her husband as direct and unafraid to speak up when something was wrong. "If he sees things that he doesn't like, he will tell it to you straightforward. That's how it is. He doesn't care who you are," she said.
That quality, an old man's willingness to say something when a teenager nearly ran over his wife with a cart, cost him his life. He expected basic courtesy. He got a beating.
Josephine told reporters about the weight of what she now carries:
"I lost a husband of 42 years, and my son lost a father. As each day passes by, I feel the pain of loneliness about being by myself now. There is an anger and bitterness in me. If only I could turn back time."
Store surveillance video of the attack exists, obtained by WTKR. The footage and the widow's testimony will likely form the backbone of the prosecution's case. Several questions remain unanswered: whether any Walmart employees or managers intervened during the assault, whether other witnesses have come forward, and when the defendants will next appear in court.
Bert Atienza went to church, went grocery shopping, and stood up for his wife. He was 77 years old. The people who beat him were decades younger, and they outnumbered him. The defense calls it "spontaneous." The charge sheet calls it second-degree murder. The widow calls it what it is: the day she lost everything.
A society that cannot protect a 77-year-old man standing in a grocery aisle asking for common decency has lost something no verdict can restore.
