Christopher Dwayne Lawson was 30 years old when he died on Thursday, May 18, 2017, in downtown Los Angeles. According to the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner-Coroner, he died of stab wounds near the corner of Crocker and Agatha streets. His death was ruled a homicide, and it is listed as a case of the Los Angeles Police Department's Newton Division.
The Los Angeles Times Homicide Report recorded his death in a single sentence drawn from coroner's records. It described him as "a 30-year-old Black male" who "died Thursday, May 18, after being stabbed near Crocker & Agatha streets in Downtown." No follow-up story appears to have been written, and no details about the circumstances were released.
Beyond his name, his age and the place where he died, almost nothing about Christopher Dwayne Lawson 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.
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.
Christopher Lawson is a common name. Searches turn up a San Diego prosecutor, actors, people named in unrelated criminal cases and obituaries for men of that name in Kentucky, Illinois, Alabama, Texas and Ohio, none of whom can be tied to this death. No record found for this story connects his middle name, Dwayne, to any public listing.
The corner of Crocker and Agatha streets lies in the eastern part of downtown Los Angeles, an area of warehouses and wholesale businesses that is also part of the Skid Row area, where thousands of homeless people live in shelters, residential hotels and tents along the sidewalks. The streets there are busy with trucks and workers early in the morning and much emptier at night. Many people who live on those blocks have no fixed address, and deaths there often draw little public attention, which may help explain why so little was written about this one.
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 Christopher Dwayne Lawson 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 knew a 30-year-old man named Christopher or Chris Lawson, who stayed or worked near Crocker and Agatha streets in May 2017, or who heard talk of a stabbing there that week, may hold information that could help. Outreach workers, shelter staff and neighbors who were in the area at the time may remember him. 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.
