Jose Belmonte was 57 years old when he died on Sunday, December 7, 2003, in downtown Los Angeles. According to the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner-Coroner, he died after sustaining blunt force trauma at 432 E. 7th St. His death was ruled a homicide, and it is listed as a Los Angeles Police Department Central Division case.
The Los Angeles Times Homicide Report, which draws on coroner's records, describes him as a Latino man and records the date, the downtown address and the cause of death. Nothing more about the circumstances was published there.
Beyond his name, his age and the place where he died, almost nothing about Jose Belmonte 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. Searches for his name turned up many other men called Jose Belmonte, including a famous Spanish bullfighter, defendants in unrelated court cases and people in other states and countries. None of those records concern the man who died on 7th Street.
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.
East 7th Street runs through the eastern part of downtown Los Angeles, an area of wholesale businesses, warehouses, garment and produce trade, and low-cost housing. It lies near the neighborhood widely known as Skid Row, where thousands of people live in shelters, residential hotels and tents, and where missions and service agencies line the streets. People who live and work in the area spend much of the day outdoors, and the sidewalks are busy from early morning on. A man of 57 could have been living, working or simply passing through the neighborhood, but the record does not say which.
The LAPD's Central Division, which covers downtown, handles a heavy share of the city's street crime. Deaths in this part of the city, especially those of men with no public profile, often receive no news coverage at all, and that appears to be what happened here.
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 Belmonte could be found in news archives or public records. More than 22 years later, there is no public sign that anyone has been held responsible. Anyone who was on or near the 400 block of East 7th Street in early December 2003, or who knew Jose Belmonte and remembers where he was living or working at the time, 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.
