A 35-year-old man was found dead in the sand on Venice Beach late Monday night, and Los Angeles police have confirmed they are investigating his death as a shooting. The discovery, made just south of Lifeguard Tower 19, prompted officers to block off a stretch of the beach near the shoreline as detectives began piecing together what happened.
According to KTLA, a caller reported the sighting in the 1800 block of Ocean Front Walk, and a Los Angeles Police Department spokesperson said a call about a person down in the sand reached dispatch at 11:13 p.m. The body was seen underneath a white sheet before investigators cleared the scene. The Los Angeles Police Department has confirmed the victim was a man and that he was 35 years old, but the department has not released his identity or said whether any potential suspect has been identified.
A Late-Night Call in a Landmark Stretch of the Boardwalk
The discovery site sits in one of Venice Beach's busiest corridors, a stretch of Ocean Front Walk that includes Muscle Beach Gym and the Venice Beach Recreation Center's basketball and paddle tennis courts, according to Hotel Erwin. By day the area draws crowds of tourists, athletes, and street performers, but the 11:13 p.m. call came well after the beach sand is legally open to the public. Under posted city park regulations and Los Angeles Municipal Code Section 63.44, Venice Beach recreation areas close daily between 10 p.m. and 6 a.m., a curfew that, per LAist, was originally enacted in 1988 to curb late-night crime.
The Los Angeles Police Department has not made further details immediately available, including any information about a motive or suspect. Detectives with West Bureau Homicide and the LAPD's Pacific Community Police Station, which covers Venice, Mar Vista, and surrounding coastal neighborhoods, oversee violent crime investigations in the area, according to LAPD Online.
Boardwalk Has Seen a String of Recent Incidents
The homicide adds to a run of public safety incidents along the boardwalk this month. Earlier in August, LAPD officers responded to the 3100 block of Ocean Front Walk after a driver struck a bicyclist, drove onto the Venice Pier toward crowds, and led police on a pursuit into Marina del Rey; that driver was booked on suspicion of assault with a deadly weapon on a peace officer. A little over a week ago, officers also responded to an unconfirmed report of an armed hostage situation just two blocks north of Monday's homicide scene, in the 1600 block of Ocean Front Walk, before clearing it as unfounded, per Citizen.
Fatal shootings along this stretch of shoreline are not new. In June 2021, LAPD detectives launched a homicide investigation on Ocean Front Walk near Dudley Avenue after a 49-year-old man was shot and killed at a beach encampment, a case in which police arrested a suspect shortly after the incident, according to CBS Los Angeles.
Homicide Numbers Hit a 60-Year Low Citywide
Monday's killing comes even as Los Angeles has seen a historic drop in violence. The LAPD recorded 230 homicides citywide in 2025, a 19% decrease from 2024 and the lowest annual total since 1966, according to Police1. Department leadership has credited targeted interdiction and gun seizures as primary factors in the decline, and officers recovered 8,650 firearms across the city in 2025, about 1,000 more than the year before, contributing to an 8% drop in citywide gunshot victims. LAPD has reported that firearms were involved in more than 75% of the city's homicides last year.
Police also closed 68% of homicides committed citywide in 2025, solving 156 cases in addition to 78 cold cases from previous years, pushing the department's total clearance rate to 101% when factoring in prior-year resolutions, per the same report. Whether Monday's Venice Beach case joins that list remains an open question, as the LAPD has not yet released information about a suspect or motive.
