Irvin Rodolfo Sosa-Chavez was 20 years old when he died on Tuesday, July 19, 2016, in the Broadway-Manchester neighborhood of South Los Angeles. According to the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner-Coroner, he died of stab wounds in the 100 block of West 105th Street. His death was ruled a homicide, and it is listed as a Los Angeles Police Department case handled by the department's Criminal Gang Homicide Division.
The Los Angeles Times Homicide Report recorded him as a Latino man who "died Tuesday, July 19, after being stabbed in Broadway-Manchester." The entry was drawn from coroner's records and gives no further details about how or why he was hurt. No follow-up story appears to have been written.
Beyond his name, his age and the place where he died, almost nothing about Irvin Rodolfo Sosa-Chavez 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. His full name is uncommon, yet searches for it, and for the shorter form Irvin Sosa-Chavez, returned no news stories, memorial pages or court records at all.
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 assignment of the case to the Criminal Gang Homicide Division is the only other clue in the public record. That unit investigates many killings in South Los Angeles, and the assignment does not by itself mean that he belonged to a gang or that gang members were involved. Investigators have never publicly explained what they believed happened.
Broadway-Manchester is a residential neighborhood in South Los Angeles, named for the intersection of Broadway and Manchester Avenue. Its blocks are lined mostly with modest single-family houses and small apartment buildings, with shops, churches and auto businesses along the main avenues. West 105th Street is one of the numbered residential streets that run east and west through the area, and many families there have lived on the same blocks for years, which means neighbors may remember a summer night in 2016 when a young man was hurt nearby.
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 Irvin Rodolfo Sosa-Chavez could be found in news archives or public records. More than nine years later, there is no public sign that anyone has been held responsible. Anyone who lived on or near West 105th Street in July 2016, who knew a 20-year-old named Irvin in Broadway-Manchester, or who later heard talk about a stabbing there, 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.
