Job Lopez was 41 years old when he died on Tuesday, June 22, 2021, in downtown Los Angeles. According to the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner-Coroner, he died of stab wounds near Flower Street and West Pico Boulevard. 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.
Beyond his name, his age and the place where he died, almost nothing about Job Lopez 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.
The coroner's record describes him as a Latino man, and the Los Angeles Times entry says only that he died "after being stabbed near Flower Street & West Pico Boulevard in Downtown."
His name brings up many other people. Lopez is one of the most common surnames in the United States, and searches for Job Lopez turn up a community activist from Mountain View who died in 2020, a nurse practitioner, several court cases and social media comments from other states and countries. None of them refer to a man stabbed in downtown Los Angeles in June 2021. One online memorial fundraiser carries his name, but nothing in the available record shows whether it was for him.
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.
The corner where he was hurt is one of the busier intersections on the southern side of downtown. Flower Street and Pico Boulevard meet in the South Park district, a few blocks from the Crypto.com Arena, the L.A. Live entertainment complex and the Los Angeles Convention Center. The Pico Metro station, served by light rail lines running between downtown and Long Beach and Santa Monica, sits at the intersection, and the surrounding blocks mix new high-rise apartment towers with parking lots, hotels and older commercial buildings. On game nights and convention days the area fills with crowds, while at other hours it can be much quieter.
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 Job Lopez 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 at or near Flower Street and Pico Boulevard in late June 2021, or who rode the trains through the Pico station that week and saw or heard something unusual, 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.
