Clarence W. Dawson was 59 years old when he died on Tuesday, July 22, 2014, in downtown Los Angeles. According to the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner-Coroner, he died of stab wounds at 241 E. 5th Street. His death was ruled a homicide, and it is listed as a Los Angeles Police Department Central Division case.
The Los Angeles Times Homicide Report recorded his death in a single sentence. It described him as "a 59-year-old white male" who "died Tuesday, July 22, after being stabbed in Downtown, according to Los Angeles County coroner's records." No detective was quoted, no account of the attack was given, and nothing further was added to the entry in the years that followed.
Beyond his name, his age and the place where he died, almost nothing about Clarence W. Dawson 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. The record also does not say whether the 5th Street address was a residence, a business or simply the spot where he was found.
Clarence Dawson is not a rare name. A search turned up a painter of the 1930s and 1940s, a singer with the Motown group the Miracles, a man buried in Inglewood in 1980 and others in obituaries across the country, none of whom can be connected to this death. Without a middle name spelled out or a family notice, it has not been possible to trace anything more about the man who died on 5th Street.
East 5th Street runs through the eastern part of downtown Los Angeles, close to the area known as Skid Row, where shelters, missions and single-room-occupancy hotels stand alongside small businesses and warehouses. Thousands of people live in and pass through these blocks every day, many of them unhoused, and the sidewalks are busy at nearly every hour. Whether or not Clarence Dawson lived there, the people who share those streets often know one another by face or by nickname, and someone may remember him.
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 Clarence W. Dawson could be found in news archives or public records. More than 11 years later, there is no public sign that anyone has been held responsible. Anyone who lived, worked or stayed on or near East 5th Street in downtown Los Angeles in July 2014, or who knew a 59-year-old man named Clarence Dawson, 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.
