Angel Ibarra Haro was 21 years old when he died on Wednesday, Sept. 11, 2019, in the Highland Park neighborhood of Northeast Los Angeles. According to the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner-Coroner, he died of stab wounds at 508 San Pascual Ave. His death was ruled a homicide, and it is listed as a Los Angeles Police Department Northeast Division case.
The Los Angeles Times Homicide Report described him only as "a 21-year-old Latino male" who "died Wednesday, Sept. 11, after being stabbed in Highland Park." No news outlet appears to have reported on the stabbing.
His death notice gives a few more details. A memorial page from Forest Lawn, also carried on Legacy.com, says that "Angel Ibarra Haro, 21, born on March 7, 1998, in Los Angeles, United States, passed away September 11, 2019. He resided in Los Angeles, CA at the time of his passing." Arrangements were under the direction of Forest Lawn in Glendale.
He was a native of the city, and he died six months after his 21st birthday. The notice does not name his family or describe his school, his work or his interests, and no fundraiser or remembrance could be tied to him with confidence. Other men named Angel Haro appear in fundraisers and obituaries from other years and places, but 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.
Highland Park is one of the older neighborhoods of Northeast Los Angeles, set in the hills along the Arroyo Seco between downtown and Pasadena. It grew up around the early rail lines, and its streets still hold many Craftsman bungalows and older apartment buildings. For decades it was a largely Latino, working-class neighborhood, and in the 2010s it became one of the city's best-known examples of rapid gentrification, as new cafes, bars and shops opened along York Boulevard and Figueroa Street and rents rose sharply. Residential streets such as San Pascual Avenue are close enough together that neighbors often know one another, and a stabbing at a home address there may have been heard or seen by people nearby.
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 Angel Ibarra Haro could be found in news archives or public records. More than six years later, there is no public sign that anyone has been held responsible. Anyone who lived on or near San Pascual Avenue in Highland Park in September 2019, or who knew Angel and saw him in the days before his death, may hold information that could help detectives. Friends who grew up with him in Northeast Los Angeles could know who he spent time with. 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.
