Alvaro Soto was 52 years old when he died on Thursday, July 24, 2003, in Long Beach. According to the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner-Coroner, he died of stab wounds at 920 E. 6th St. His death was ruled a homicide, and it is listed as a case of the Long Beach Police Department.
The Los Angeles Times Homicide Report recorded his death in a single sentence drawn from coroner's records. It described him as "a 52-year-old Latino male" who "died Thursday, July 24, after being stabbed in Long Beach."
A little more about the attack survives in a 2004 newspaper series on Long Beach gang violence published by the Los Angeles Newspaper Group under the title "LB gang victims have their own stories."
In a list of that year's victims, the series included an entry dated July 23 for "Alvaro Soto, 53," and said that "Soto was standing outside his home with friends in the 900 block of East Sixth Street when several suspected," before the only part of the article that could be retrieved breaks off. The age and date differ slightly from the coroner's record, which suggests he may have been attacked late on July 23 and died the next day, or that one of the records rounded his age. The block, the city and the name all match.
The entry's place in a series about gang victims suggests that police or reporters at the time believed the attack was connected to gang activity, though the surviving text does not say whether Soto himself had any connection to a gang. Beyond this, nothing about his life has been made public. No obituary, memorial page or family fundraiser could be found, and no other news account of the stabbing appears to have been published. Alvaro Soto is also a common name, and searches turn up many other men who share it, none connected to this death.
The 900 block of East Sixth Street lies in central Long Beach, a short distance east of downtown, in one of the most densely populated parts of the city. The neighborhood is made up largely of older apartment buildings and small houses, home to many working families. Long Beach, the second-largest city in Los Angeles County and the site of one of the busiest ports in the country, has its own police department, which investigates killings within the city.
Hundreds of people are killed in Los Angeles County every year, and a large share of those killings end without an arrest.
No arrest, criminal charge or court case connected to the death of Alvaro Soto could be found in news archives or public records. More than 22 years later, there is no public sign that anyone has been held responsible. The friends who were reportedly standing with him outside his home that night, and neighbors on East Sixth Street who saw or heard the attack in late July 2003, may know more than has ever been made public. 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 contact the Long Beach Police Department's Homicide Detail at 562-570-7244, or leave an anonymous tip with Crime Stoppers at 800-222-TIPS (8477).
