Edwin Israel Gomez was 20 years old when he died on Wednesday, August 5, 2020, in the Pico-Union neighborhood of Los Angeles, just west of downtown. According to the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner-Coroner, he died after being stabbed near 1623 S. Union Ave. His death was ruled a homicide, and it is listed as a case of the Los Angeles Police Department's Central Bureau Homicide unit.
The Los Angeles Times Homicide Report recorded his death in a single sentence drawn from coroner's records. It described him as "a 20-year-old Latino male" who "died Wednesday, Aug. 5, after being stabbed near 1623 S. Union Ave. in Pico-Union." 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 Edwin Israel Gomez 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. Edwin Gomez is a common name in Southern California and across Latin America, and searches turn up many other men who share it, including people in Mexico and in several other states, none of whom 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.
Pico-Union is a dense, largely working-class neighborhood just west of downtown Los Angeles, named for the intersection of Pico Boulevard and Union Avenue. It sits south of Westlake and has long been home to a large Central American and Mexican community, with apartment buildings, small businesses and churches packed close together. Some of the oldest homes in the city survive there, including Victorian houses from the late nineteenth century. Union Avenue runs north and south through the heart of the neighborhood.
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 Edwin Israel Gomez could be found in news archives or public records. More than five years later, there is no public sign that anyone has been held responsible. Anyone who knew a 20-year-old man named Edwin Israel Gomez, or who lived on or near the 1600 block of South Union Avenue in Pico-Union in August 2020, 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 call the Los Angeles Police Department at 877-527-3247 or leave an anonymous tip with Crime Stoppers at 800-222-TIPS.
