Tyrone Alvin Green was 68 years old when he died on Thursday, Dec. 24, 2009, in Compton. According to the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner-Coroner, he died after sustaining blunt force trauma at 1214 S. Atlantic Drive. His death was ruled a homicide, and it is listed as a Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department case.
He died on Christmas Eve, in his own home. According to a Sheriff's Department news release quoted by the Los Angeles Times, deputies were sent to the 1200 block of South Atlantic Drive after a call about a person not breathing. They found Green severely beaten and lying on the floor of his apartment. He was pronounced dead at the scene at 8:36 p.m. No other information was immediately available, and the Times later listed his death in its weekly roundup of homicides in the county.
The few facts in the record raise obvious questions. Someone called for help, but the record does not say who, or whether that person had found him or had been with him. It does not say whether the apartment had been broken into or ransacked, whether anything was taken, or whether he knew the person who beat him. An attack on a man in his late 60s inside his own apartment suggests that his attacker may have been someone he let in, or someone who forced the door, but the public record does not say which.
Beyond his name, his age and the place where he died, almost nothing about Tyrone Green has been made public. No obituary, memorial page or family fundraiser could be found for this story. He was born in the early 1940s, which means he lived through decades of change in Compton and the surrounding communities, and he surely had family, friends or neighbors who remember him, but none of that has entered the public record.
Tyrone Green is a common name, and searches for it turn up dozens of other men, in obituaries from Michigan, New York, Texas and Louisiana, in court records from Pennsylvania and in school yearbooks. None of them can be tied to the 68-year-old man who died in Compton.
Compton is a city in the southern part of Los Angeles County. It disbanded its own police department in 2000 and has contracted with the Sheriff's Department for law enforcement ever since, which is why his case belongs to the sheriff's Homicide Bureau. The city is largely made up of single-family homes and small apartment buildings, and many families have lived there for generations.
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 Tyrone Alvin Green could be found in news archives or public records. More than 16 years later, there is no public sign that anyone has been held responsible. Neighbors on South Atlantic Drive in December 2009, visitors to his apartment that Christmas Eve, and anyone who heard someone talk about the attack 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 Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department Homicide Bureau at 323-890-5500, or leave an anonymous tip with Crime Stoppers at 800-222-TIPS.
