Walter Perez Lopez was 17 years old when he died on Wednesday, Aug. 30, 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 1527 W. 7th 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 17-year-old Latino male" who "died Wednesday, Aug. 30, after being stabbed in Westlake." The entry gave a street address on Seventh Street, but it did not say whether that was his home, the home of someone he knew or simply the place where he was found. No follow-up story appears to have been written, even though he was still a teenager.
Beyond his name, his age and the place where he died, almost nothing about Walter Perez Lopez 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. Walter Lopez is a common name in Southern California and across Central America and Mexico, and searches turn up many other men who share it, including adults arrested in other states years later. None of them can be tied 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.
Westlake is one of the most densely populated neighborhoods in Los Angeles, built around MacArthur Park just west of downtown. Seventh Street runs through the heart of it, lined with older apartment buildings, small markets, clinics and storefront businesses. In 2000 the neighborhood was home to large numbers of Central American and Mexican immigrant families, many of them living in crowded apartments, and young people there grew up surrounded by street gangs that had long claimed parts of the area. The Rampart Division that covered Westlake 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 Walter Perez Lopez 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 17-year-old named Walter Perez Lopez, whether from school, from his building or from the streets around MacArthur Park, or who was near the 1500 block of West Seventh Street in late August 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).
