Flavio Gomez was 38 years old when he died on Tuesday, September 18, 2001. According to the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner-Coroner, he died of stab wounds. His death was ruled a homicide, and it is listed as a Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department case. Unlike most entries in the record, his gives no street address and no neighborhood for the place where he was hurt.
The Los Angeles Times Homicide Report recorded his death in a single sentence. It described him as "a 38-year-old Latino male" who "died Tuesday, Sept. 18, after being stabbed." That is the whole of the public account. Because the case belongs to the Sheriff's Department, he was most likely hurt somewhere in an unincorporated part of Los Angeles County or in one of the many cities that contract with the department for policing, but the record does not say which.
Beyond his name, his age and the place where he died, almost nothing about Flavio Gomez 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. Flavio Gomez is a fairly common name in Mexico and among Spanish-speaking families in the United States, and searches turn up the brother of a Mexican drug lord, young men arrested in Northern California, a man found dead in Sonoma County and older men whose obituaries were published in Florida and San Diego, none of whom can be connected to this death.
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 Sheriff's Department is responsible for a vast territory. Its deputies patrol unincorporated communities such as East Los Angeles, Florence-Firestone and Willowbrook, as well as dozens of contract cities stretching from the Antelope Valley to the South Bay. Homicides in all of those places are investigated by the department's Homicide Bureau.
He died one week after the September 11 attacks, at a time when national news was dominated by events far from Los Angeles. A stabbing recorded in a single line of coroner's data would have drawn little notice in those days.
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 Flavio Gomez could be found in news archives or public records. More than 24 years later, there is no public sign that anyone has been held responsible. Anyone who knew a 38-year-old man named Flavio Gomez in Los Angeles County in 2001, or who heard about a stabbing in mid-September of that year in a community patrolled by the Sheriff's Department, may hold information that could help. 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 Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department Homicide Bureau at 323-890-5500, or leave an anonymous tip with Crime Stoppers at 800-222-TIPS (8477).
