Anthony Davis was 52 years old when he died on Monday, September 20, 2021, in Long Beach. According to the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner-Coroner, he died after being stabbed near 5442 Linden Ave. His death was ruled a homicide, and it is listed as a case of the Long Beach Police Department.
The Los Angeles Times Homicide Report recorded his death in a single sentence drawn from coroner's records. It described him as "a 52-year-old Black male" who "died Monday, Sept. 20, after being stabbed near 5442 Linden Ave. in Long Beach." The entry gave a street address, but it did not say whether that was his home, the home of someone he knew or simply the place where he was found. No follow-up story appears to have been written about his death.
Beyond his name, his age and the place where he died, almost nothing about Anthony Davis 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. Anthony Davis is also one of the most common names in the country. Searches for it are dominated by a famous professional basketball player and by a Pulitzer Prize-winning composer whose opera premiered at Long Beach Opera, and they turn up many other men of the same name in other states. None of them can be connected to this death.
Because so little has been released, even the basic circumstances remain unknown to the public. The record does not say whether he was stabbed during a fight or a robbery, attacked by a stranger or by someone he knew, or hurt indoors or on the street. 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.
Somewhere there may be people who knew where he was going that day or who he was with in his last hours, and who never had a reason to connect what they knew to a short line in the coroner's records.
Long Beach is the second-largest city in Los Angeles County, a port city of several hundred thousand people on San Pedro Bay with its own police department. Away from its downtown, waterfront and harbor, it is largely a city of residential neighborhoods made up of single-family homes and apartment buildings on long, straight streets. Linden Avenue is one of those north-south residential streets.
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 Anthony Davis could be found in news archives or public records. More than four years later, there is no public sign that anyone has been held responsible. Anyone who lived on or near the 5400 block of Linden Avenue in Long Beach in September 2021, or who knew a 52-year-old man named Anthony Davis, may hold information that could help. 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.
