Juan Gonzalez, 56, a male Latino, was found mortally wounded just after 2:24 a.m. on August 16, 2025, in an alley off the 5000 block of Whittier Boulevard near Fraser/Woods Avenue in unincorporated East Los Angeles. Deputies arrived to discover him beyond help and he was pronounced dead at the scene; the Medical Examiner listed the manner of death as homicide and the cause as a gunshot wound of the chest (coroner case 2025-13096).

Reports say Gonzalez was one of three homeless men struck in a single attack; the other two were wounded and survived. The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department Homicide Bureau took over the investigation and the suspect was described as unknown; no assailant had been publicly identified in the hours after the shooting.

Anyone who was on or near Whittier Boulevard in the pre-dawn hours of August 16 and may have seen or heard something is asked to contact the Homicide Bureau with information.