Artemio Escobar was 42 years old when he died on Thursday, September 24, 2015, in the Baldwin Hills/Crenshaw area of Los Angeles. According to the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner-Coroner, he died after sustaining blunt force trauma at the rear of 3909 Gibraltar Ave. His death was ruled a homicide, and it is listed as a Los Angeles Police Department case assigned to its Criminal Gang Homicide Division.
The Los Angeles Times Homicide Report listed him as a Latino man. Beyond his name, his age and the place where he died, almost nothing about Artemio Escobar 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. Escobar is a common surname across Latin America and Southern California, and searches for his name turn up several other men called Artemio Escobar, none of whom can be tied to the man who died in Los Angeles.
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.
Two details in the record stand out. The first is the address, which places the death at the rear of a property rather than at the front or on the street. That suggests he may have been found behind a building, in a yard, an alley or a back unit, though the record does not describe the spot. The second is the assignment of the case to the LAPD's Criminal Gang Homicide Division, a unit that handles many killings in South Los Angeles. The assignment by itself does not mean the killing was gang related, and nothing public says that it was.
Baldwin Hills/Crenshaw is a long-established area of South Los Angeles. For generations it has been a center of Black life and culture in the city, and in more recent decades many Latino families have also made their homes there. The neighborhood is known for its hillside homes, for the Baldwin Hills Crenshaw Plaza shopping center and for the Kenneth Hahn State Recreation Area, a large park on the hills to the west.
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.
No arrest, criminal charge or court case connected to the death of Artemio Escobar could be found in news archives or public records. More than ten years later, there is no public sign that anyone has been held responsible. Anyone who was near Gibraltar Avenue in Baldwin Hills/Crenshaw in September 2015, or who knew Artemio Escobar and saw him in the days before he died, 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.
