Ricardo Porras Sr. was 55 years old when he died on Friday, July 16, 2021, in Lincoln Heights. According to the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner-Coroner, he died of stab wounds near 2606 N. Broadway. His death was ruled a homicide, and it is listed as a Los Angeles Police Department case. Its agency is listed only by the code CBH, which appears to stand for the Los Angeles Police Department's Central Bureau Homicide unit, the detectives who handle killings in and around downtown.
Almost nothing about his death has been made public. The Los Angeles Times entry says only that he "died Friday, July 16, after being stabbed near 2606 N. Broadway in Lincoln Heights." No news story about the stabbing could be found, and the coroner's record does not list his race.
There is one trace that may describe his family.
An obituary posted on the Dignity Memorial website for a Ricardo Porras of Los Angeles, which appears from its listing number to date from around the same time, says that he "is survived by his son's, Ricardo Porras and James Porras, his sister's Gloria Sanchez and Martha Jaime, and brother Nicholas." A son named Ricardo would fit a man known as Ricardo Porras Sr., but only a short excerpt of that obituary was available, and it does not mention how he died, so it cannot be confirmed that it refers to the man killed in Lincoln Heights.
Ricardo Porras is a fairly common name, and searches also turn up a man of that name who died in Mexico, a 71-year-old who died in Illinois in 2024 and several living people in other states. None of those records has any connection to this case.
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 what time of day he was hurt. It does not say whether he died at the scene or later at a hospital, whether anyone saw what happened, or whether investigators ever identified a suspect.
Lincoln Heights is one of the oldest neighborhoods in Los Angeles, lying just northeast of downtown across the Los Angeles River. North Broadway is its main commercial street, lined with small shops, restaurants, churches and older homes and apartment buildings, and the neighborhood has long been a close-knit, working-class community where many families have lived for generations. Lincoln Park, one of the city's older parks, sits at its eastern edge.
Los Angeles recorded about 260 homicides a year in 2018 and 2019, among the lowest yearly totals in more than half a century, yet many of those killings still went unsolved.
No arrest, criminal charge or court case connected to the death of Ricardo Porras Sr. 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 knew him, who was on or near North Broadway in Lincoln Heights in mid-July 2021, or who heard talk afterward about a man stabbed there, 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.
