Joseph Barrington Bell was 56 years old when he died on Friday, May 27, 2016, in the Leimert Park neighborhood of South Los Angeles. According to the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner-Coroner, he died after sustaining blunt force trauma at 4147 McClung Drive. His death was ruled a homicide, and it is listed as a Los Angeles Police Department case handled by the department's Criminal Gang Homicide Division.
He was a Black man in his mid-50s. Beyond his name, his age and the place where he died, almost nothing about Joseph Barrington Bell 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 fairly common one, and searches turned up only other men who share it in other states and other eras.
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 record gives a street address on McClung Drive, which may mean that he was hurt in or near a home there, but it does not say whether he lived at that address or whom he knew on that street.
Leimert Park is one of the most storied neighborhoods in Los Angeles. It was laid out in the late 1920s as a planned community, with curving streets, tree-lined parkways and Spanish-style homes, and in the decades after World War II it became a center of Black middle-class life in the city. Leimert Park Village, the small commercial district around the neighborhood's central plaza, has long been known for its art galleries, jazz clubs, bookstores, drum circles and festivals, and it is often described as the cultural heart of Black Los Angeles. Many families there have lived in the same homes for generations.
That sense of community is a reason for hope. A death on a residential street where people know their neighbors is the kind of event people talk about, even if they never speak with police.
By the mid-2010s Los Angeles was recording roughly 250 to 300 homicides a year, among the lowest totals in decades, yet many of those killings still went unsolved. The death of a 56-year-old man from blunt force trauma in Leimert Park does not appear to have been reported by any news outlet.
No arrest, criminal charge or court case connected to the death of Joseph Barrington Bell could be found in news archives or public records. More than nine years later, there is no public sign that anyone has been held responsible. Anyone who lived on or near McClung Drive in late May 2016, or who knew Joseph, may hold information that could help detectives. 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.
