Cesar Lopez was 25 years old when he died early on Sunday, August 6, 2017, in Watts. According to the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner-Coroner, he died of stab wounds at 10859 Kalmia St. His death was ruled a homicide, and it is listed as a case of the Los Angeles Police Department's South Bureau Homicide unit.
The Los Angeles Times Homicide Report described what detectives had pieced together. At 3:10 a.m., Lopez "was sitting in a dark-blue sedan with three others when he saw a woman nearby," Los Angeles Police Det. Dave Garrido said. According to police, "Lopez tried to hit on the woman before a dark-colored sedan pulled up and another man got out." Lopez got out of his own car, and "he and the man got into an argument." He was stabbed during the skirmish.
The man who stabbed him, described only as a Latino, fled, and the Times reported that police were "looking to identify him."
Lopez was pronounced dead at the scene at 3:30 a.m., about twenty minutes after the time police gave for the start of the encounter, according to coroner's records.
That account leaves important questions open. It does not say who the woman was, whether she knew the man who arrived in the second car, or whether she left with him. It does not identify the three people who were sitting in the sedan with Lopez, although they may have seen the argument and the man's car up close.
Beyond his name, his age and the place where he died, almost nothing about Cesar 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. Cesar Lopez is also a very common name. Searches turn up lawyers' staff, athletes, defendants in unrelated criminal cases and obituaries for many other men of that name across the country, none of whom can be tied to this death.
Watts is a neighborhood in the southern part of the city of Los Angeles, known around the world for the Watts Towers, the hand-built sculptures of Simon Rodia, and for the 1965 uprising that began there. It is a community of modest single-family houses, apartment buildings and large public housing developments.
By the mid-2010s Los Angeles was recording roughly 250 to 300 homicides a year, among the lowest totals in decades, yet many of those killings still went unsolved.
No arrest, criminal charge or court case connected to the death of Cesar Lopez could be found in news archives or public records. More than eight years later, there is no public sign that anyone has been held responsible. Anyone who was on Kalmia Street in Watts in the early morning hours of August 6, 2017, who saw a dark-colored sedan stop near a dark-blue car, or who heard about an argument over a woman that ended in a stabbing, 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. The Times asked anyone with information to call South Bureau detectives at 786-5111. 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.
