Andre Davis was 66 years old when he died on Thursday, October 10, 2019, on Skid Row in downtown Los Angeles. According to the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner-Coroner, he died after sustaining blunt force trauma near the corner of 5th and San Pedro streets. His death was ruled a homicide, and it is listed as a Los Angeles Police Department case handled by the department's Central area.
He was a Black man in his mid-60s. Beyond his name, his age and the place where he died, almost nothing about Andre Davis has been made public. No obituary, memorial page or family fundraiser could be found for this story, and no news outlet appears to have reported on the death. He surely had family, friends or neighbors who remember who he was, but none of that has entered the public record. His name is a common one, and searches turned up only other men who share it.
Because so little has been released, even the basic circumstances remain unknown to the public. The record does not say whether he was beaten in a fight, attacked by a stranger, assaulted indoors or on the street, or struck by a vehicle, all of which can lead to a finding of blunt force trauma. It does not say what time of day he was hurt, whether he died at the scene or later at a hospital, whether anyone saw what happened, or whether investigators ever identified a suspect.
The corner of 5th and San Pedro streets is at the center of Skid Row. Skid Row, the roughly 50-block area on the eastern side of downtown Los Angeles, has one of the largest concentrations of unhoused people in the United States. Thousands of people live there in tents, shelters and single-room-occupancy hotels, alongside missions, clinics and social service agencies. People living on the street are attacked far more often than people with homes, and many of those assaults are never reported or solved. Older residents are especially vulnerable. In 2019, Los Angeles was confronting a sharp rise in homelessness, and the crowded sidewalks around 5th and San Pedro were lined with tents. Deaths of unhoused people, from violence, illness and overdoses, were climbing, and many received no public attention beyond a line in the Medical Examiner's records.
Los Angeles recorded about 260 homicides in 2019, among the lowest yearly totals in more than half a century, yet many of those killings still went unsolved. The beating death of a 66-year-old man at one of Skid Row's best-known intersections does not appear to have been reported.
No arrest, criminal charge or court case connected to the death of Andre Davis could be found in news archives or public records. Nearly seven years later, there is no public sign that anyone has been held responsible. People who lived or worked near 5th and San Pedro streets in October 2019, including staff at the missions and shelters nearby, may remember him or what happened to him. Even a small detail, such as a name overheard, a vehicle seen nearby or a conversation remembered, can help detectives move a case forward. Anyone with information can call the Los Angeles Police Department at 877-527-3247 or leave an anonymous tip with Crime Stoppers at 800-222-TIPS.
