Arthur Rainey was 43 years old when he died on Friday, June 11, 2004, in Compton. According to the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner-Coroner, he died of stab wounds at 2048 Bullis Road. His death was ruled a homicide, and it is listed as a Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department Homicide Bureau case.
The Los Angeles Times Homicide Report described him as "a 43-year-old black male" who "died Friday, June 11, after being stabbed in Compton." That short entry is nearly all that has been made public about his death.
Beyond his name, his age and the place where he died, almost nothing about Arthur Rainey 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.
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.
Searches for his name are crowded with other men named Arthur Rainey, including Arthur Rainey III, a 38-year-old Los Angeles man who was shot to death in a Long Beach bar in 2024, a case in which Long Beach police announced arrests. That death happened 20 years after this one and is not connected to it. Other men with the name appear in obituaries and court records from Arkansas, Missouri, Louisiana and Indiana. None of them can be connected to the man who died in Compton. The record gives a street address on Bullis Road, which suggests he may have been hurt at or near a home, though it does not say whether he lived there.
Compton is a city of roughly 95,000 people in the southern part of Los Angeles County, between South Los Angeles and Long Beach. It has a long history as a center of Black life and culture in Southern California and is known around the world through music, sports figures and film. The city is made up largely of single family homes on modest lots, many with front yards and driveways, along with commercial strips on its main boulevards. Bullis Road is one of the city's residential streets. Compton disbanded its own police department in 2000, and since then the Sheriff's Department has patrolled the city and investigated its homicides.
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 Arthur Rainey could be found in news archives or public records. More than 21 years later, there is no public sign that anyone has been held responsible. Anyone who knew Arthur Rainey, or who was on or near Bullis Road in Compton in June 2004, may hold information that could help investigators. 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).
