Luis Vazquez was 44 years old when he died on Friday, July 11, 2014, in Exposition Park. According to the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner-Coroner, he died of stab wounds in the 1600 block of West 35th Street. His death was ruled a homicide, and it is listed as a Los Angeles Police Department case, investigated by the department's Criminal Gang Homicide Division.
The Los Angeles Times Homicide Report described him as "a 44-year-old Latino" and gave a brief account of a sudden attack on a summer afternoon. "Shortly before 5 p.m., Vazquez was sitting on a curb drinking a beverage under a tree when a black man thought to be in his late 20s or early 30s walked up to him, said LAPD Det. Sal LaBarbera." According to the detective, "without provocation, the man stabbed Vazquez then fled on foot toward South Western Avenue." Vazquez "was taken to a hospital where he was pronounced dead at 5:30 p.m.," the coroner's office said.
The Times later corrected its first version of the post, which had said he was shot.
A motion placed before the Los Angeles City Council in late August 2014 also described the attack, stating that "on July 11, 2014 at approximately 4:48 p.m., 44 year-old Luis Vazquez was sitting on the curb in the 1600 block of West 35th Street."
The detective's account, that the attacker walked up and stabbed him "without provocation," suggests that Vazquez may not have known the man, but the record does not say whether the two had any earlier contact, whether anything was said, or whether anything was taken.
Beyond his name, his age and the place where he was attacked, almost nothing about Luis Vazquez has been made public. No obituary, memorial page or family fundraiser could be found that clearly belongs to him. Luis Vazquez is a very common name, shared by a Los Angeles salsa dancer, a professional baseball player and many men in court records in other states, none of whom can be connected to this death. He surely had family and friends who remember him, but none of that has entered the public record.
Exposition Park takes its name from the large park south of downtown Los Angeles that holds the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, the Natural History Museum and the California Science Center, just south of the University of Southern California. The surrounding neighborhood is made up largely of older homes and apartment buildings on residential side streets. At 5 p.m. on a Friday in July, people would have been outside, coming home from work or sitting in the shade, and someone may have seen a man running toward Western Avenue.
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 Luis Vazquez 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 was near the 1600 block of West 35th Street on the afternoon of July 11, 2014, may hold information that could help detectives. The Times asked anyone with information to call the Criminal Gang Homicide Division at 485-4341. 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.
