Joel Greenberg was 51 years old when he died on Wednesday, Sept. 6, 2000, in the Westlake district west of downtown Los Angeles. According to the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner-Coroner, he died of stab wounds at 1845 W. 6th St. His death was ruled a homicide, and it is listed as a case of the Los Angeles Police Department's Rampart Division.
The Los Angeles Times Homicide Report recorded his death in a single sentence drawn from coroner's records. It described him as "a 51-year-old white male" who "died Wednesday, Sept. 6, after being stabbed in Westlake." The entry gave a street address on Sixth Street, but it did not say whether he lived there, was visiting or was simply found there. No follow-up story appears to have been written.
Beyond his name, his age and the place where he died, almost nothing about Joel Greenberg 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. Joel Greenberg is a fairly common name, and searches are dominated by other men who share it, including a longtime foreign correspondent in Jerusalem and a Florida politician later convicted of federal crimes. None of them has any connection to the man who died on Sixth Street.
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.
Westlake is one of the most densely populated neighborhoods in Los Angeles, built around MacArthur Park just west of downtown. In the early twentieth century it was a fashionable district of hotels and apartment houses, and many of those older buildings still stand along Sixth Street, Wilshire Boulevard and the surrounding blocks. By 2000 the neighborhood had become home to large numbers of Central American and Mexican immigrant families, many of them living in crowded apartments, and the streets around the park were busy day and night with vendors, shoppers and people waiting for buses. The Rampart Division that covered the area was at the time at the center of a major police corruption scandal.
Homicides in Los Angeles rose sharply in the early 2000s, climbing past 600 in 2002, and detectives carried heavy caseloads. Many killings from those years were never solved.
No arrest, criminal charge or court case connected to the death of Joel Greenberg could be found in news archives or public records. More than 25 years later, there is no public sign that anyone has been held responsible. Anyone who knew a 51-year-old man named Joel Greenberg, or who lived, worked or stayed near the 1800 block of West Sixth Street in September 2000, 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 call the Los Angeles Police Department at 877-527-3247 (877-LAPD-24-7), or leave an anonymous tip with Crime Stoppers at 800-222-TIPS (8477).
