Warren Elam was 60 years old when he died on Monday, September 27, 2010, more than five months after he was attacked in Watts. According to the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner-Coroner, he died after sustaining blunt force trauma in the 2000 block of East 113th Street, where the attack took place. His death was ruled a homicide, and it is listed as a Los Angeles Police Department Southeast Division case.
He was a Black man, and on May 20, 2010, he was riding his bike. According to the Los Angeles Times Homicide Report, Ed Winter, a spokesman for the coroner's office, said Elam "was riding his bike May 20 when he was attacked by an unknown assailant." He suffered blunt head trauma in the assault.
What happened next shows how determined he was. After the attack, he rode his bike back home and then went to Harbor-UCLA Medical Center for his injuries. He was later transferred to Memorial Hospital in Gardena but returned to Harbor-UCLA, where he died on September 27, according to coroner's records.
At first the cause of death was not settled. Winter said Elam's death was initially listed as a homicide because coroner's officials believed he may have died of complications from his injuries, and a final determination was deferred pending additional tests. In an update on February 28, 2011, the Times reported that coroner's officials had ultimately ruled his death a homicide. The update went on to say that he "was pushed off" something during the attack, but the rest of that sentence was not preserved in the saved record.
LA Weekly reported his death a few days after he died, describing a man "beaten to death" and saying that "Police are searching for the suspect and any witnesses." The paper asked anyone with information to contact LAPD Southeast Division detectives at 485-4341. No later report could be found naming a suspect.
Beyond those accounts, little about Warren has been made public. No obituary, memorial page or family fundraiser could be found for this story. Searches for his name turned up other men named Warren Elam, including a onetime Wild West circus performer whose daughter was born in Los Angeles in 1922 and a 1961 high school graduate honored by an athletic hall of fame, none of whom is the man who died in 2010.
Watts is one of the best-known neighborhoods in Los Angeles. It is home to the Watts Towers, the soaring folk-art sculptures built by Simon Rodia over more than three decades, and its name is tied to the 1965 uprising that drew national attention to conditions in South Los Angeles. The neighborhood is largely made up of modest single-family homes and several large public housing developments, and many families have lived there for generations. The LAPD's Southeast Division covers Watts.
Homicides in Los Angeles fell steeply in the late 2000s and early 2010s, yet many killings from those years were never solved.
No arrest, criminal charge or court case connected to the death of Warren Elam could be found in news archives or public records. More than 15 years later, there is no public sign that anyone has been held responsible. Anyone who was near East 113th Street in Watts on May 20, 2010, who saw a man on a bicycle being attacked, or who heard talk about it later, 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.
