Miguel Lopez Martinez was 72 years old when he died on Thursday, Aug. 23, 2012, in Long Beach. According to the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner-Coroner, he died after sustaining blunt force trauma in the area of Alamitos Avenue and East New York Street. His death was ruled a homicide, and it is listed as a Long Beach Police Department case.
He was a Latino man in his early 70s. Beyond his name, his age and the place where he died, almost nothing about Miguel Lopez Martinez 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. Miguel Martinez is one of the most common names in the Spanish-speaking world, and searches for it turned up only other men, among them students, a real estate agent and men whose obituaries were published in other states. None of them is the man who died in Long Beach.
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 location the coroner gave is an intersection rather than a street address. That suggests he may have been found outdoors, on the street or sidewalk near the corner, although the record does not say so directly. At 72, he may have been more vulnerable to serious injury than a younger man, but the record says nothing more.
Long Beach, the second-largest city in Los Angeles County, is a port city of close to half a million people. It is known for one of the busiest container ports in the country, the Queen Mary, the Aquarium of the Pacific and miles of beaches along its southern edge. Away from the waterfront and the downtown towers, much of the city is made up of dense neighborhoods of apartment buildings, small houses, corner stores and busy commercial streets, where many residents have lived for decades and neighbors often know one another by sight. The streets around Alamitos Avenue and East New York Street are part of that residential fabric, a crowded and well-traveled part of the city north of downtown.
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 Miguel Lopez Martinez could be found in news archives or public records. More than 13 years later, there is no public sign that anyone has been held responsible. Anyone who lived or worked near Alamitos Avenue and East New York Street in Long Beach in late August 2012, or who knew Miguel, 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 contact the Long Beach Police Department's Homicide Detail at 562-570-7244, or leave an anonymous tip with Crime Stoppers at 800-222-TIPS.
