Jose Antonio De Jesus-Rivera was 44 years old when he died on Monday, June 19, 2006, in the Broadway-Manchester neighborhood of South Los Angeles. According to the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner-Coroner, he died after sustaining blunt force trauma at 516 W. 90th St. His death was ruled a homicide, and it is listed as a Los Angeles Police Department Southeast Division case.
The Los Angeles Times Homicide Report recorded his death in a single sentence drawn from coroner's records. It gave his age, listed him as a Latino man, and placed his death in Broadway-Manchester. It did not say how he was hurt, who found him, whether the address was his home or whether detectives had any idea who was responsible.
Beyond his name, his age and the place where he died, almost nothing about Jose Antonio De Jesus-Rivera 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 given names are among the most common in the Spanish-speaking world, and searches for his full name turned up no record connected 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.
What the record does show is that he died at a specific address on a residential street, on a Monday in early summer. A man of 44 almost certainly had people who knew him, whether relatives, coworkers, roommates or neighbors who saw him on his block.
Broadway-Manchester is a neighborhood in South Los Angeles named for the intersection of Broadway and Manchester Avenue, a long-standing commercial crossroads. The surrounding blocks are mostly small single-family houses and low apartment buildings, and for decades the area has been home to Black and Latino working families. West 90th Street is one of the residential streets just west of Broadway. The neighborhood is patrolled by the LAPD's Southeast Division, which handled this case.
Los Angeles still recorded roughly 480 to 520 homicides a year in the mid-2000s, and many of those killings were never solved.
No arrest, criminal charge or court case connected to the death of Jose Antonio De Jesus-Rivera could be found in news archives or public records. More than 19 years later, there is no public sign that anyone has been held responsible. Anyone who lived on or near the 500 block of West 90th Street in June 2006, or who knew a 44-year-old man named Jose Antonio De Jesus-Rivera, may hold information that could help. Even knowing where he worked, who he lived with or where his family came from could give detectives a place to start. 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.
