Omar A. Barrios-Ramirez was 37 years old when he died on Monday, September 7, 2015, Labor Day. According to the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner-Coroner, he died after sustaining blunt force trauma. His death was ruled a homicide. The record published by the Los Angeles Times gives no address, no neighborhood and no investigating agency, and lists his city only as Los Angeles.
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 Omar A. Barrios-Ramirez 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 fairly distinctive, combining two family surnames, yet searches for it turn up no news story, no public notice and no other record that can be tied to him.
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 gaps in this record go further than in most. The Homicide Report usually names at least the law enforcement agency handling a case, which shows whether a death fell to the Los Angeles Police Department, the Sheriff's Department or one of the county's many city police departments. Here even that is missing. The record does not explain the gap, and any reason offered would be a guess.
Los Angeles is a city of nearly four million people spread across hundreds of square miles, from the San Fernando Valley to the harbor. Without an address, it is impossible to say which of its many neighborhoods Omar A. Barrios-Ramirez lived in or where he was on that holiday weekend.
A man of 37 is in the middle of his working life. He may have had a job, a family, children, parents or siblings, in Los Angeles or elsewhere, who were left without answers. None of that has been made public. The people who knew him are likely the only ones who can fill in the picture of who he was and where he was that weekend.
Hundreds of people are killed in Los Angeles County every year, and a large share of those killings end without an arrest.
No arrest, criminal charge or court case connected to the death of Omar A. Barrios-Ramirez 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 knew Omar A. Barrios-Ramirez, or who saw him over the Labor Day weekend in early September 2015, may hold information that could help investigators. 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 the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department Homicide Bureau at 323-890-5500, or leave an anonymous tip with Crime Stoppers at 800-222-TIPS.
