More than three years after 30-year-old food delivery driver Nestor Tlahuel Mendez was gunned down in an apparent road rage attack near La Mirada, the person responsible is still out there. The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors voted unanimously Tuesday to extend a $20,000 reward for information leading to an arrest and conviction in the case, keeping the cold case in front of the public as investigators continue searching for the shooter.
Mendez was driving westbound on Rosecrans Avenue between Valley View and Marquardt Avenues, in the 13900 block near the La Mirada and Santa Fe Springs border, when he was struck once in the left shoulder by someone in another vehicle at about 9:15 p.m. on March 29, 2023, according to MyNewsLA.com. Emergency responders located him at the scene at approximately 9:16 p.m., per the County of Los Angeles. Mendez later died from his injury. Riding with him was his 15-year-old cousin, who was not injured in the shooting, investigators said.
Authorities believe the shooting was motivated by road rage. The suspect vehicle, described as an older black sedan, was captured on surveillance cameras leaving the area via Alondra Boulevard and the Santa Ana (5) Freeway toward Firestone Boulevard in Norwalk, the same getaway route previously detailed by the Norwalk Patriot.
Supervisor Says Family Was Shattered by the Act
Supervisor Janice Hahn, who authored the original motion establishing the reward in August, said the person who killed Mendez remains at large and needs to be held accountable. Hahn said the act of road rage shattered a family and urged any witnesses or others with information to contact the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department.
The Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department Homicide Bureau is investigating the killing under case file #023-03773-0469-011, while the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner's Office classified Mendez's cause of death as homicide under Coroner Case #2023-03437, according to county records. The Board's Tuesday vote extended the $20,000 offer and kept public attention on the unsolved case.
A Broader Pattern of Gun Violence Behind the Wheel
Mendez's killing happened amid a broader pattern of road-rage shootings. Nationally, 483 people were shot in road-rage incidents in 2023, according to an Everytown for Gun Safety report analyzing Gun Violence Archive data. That amounts to an average of one person shot every 18 hours.
Los Angeles has not been immune to that trend. LAPD crime statistics cited by Crosstown LA showed 138 road rage incidents in the city involved handguns in 2021, a 123 percent increase from the year before. Crosstown separately reported 61 gun-involved road-rage reports in 2019. Delivery drivers like Mendez face particular exposure on the road. A study by the labor advocacy group Gig Workers Rising, reported by Al Jazeera, documented more than 50 app-based food delivery and rideshare drivers murdered on the job nationwide between 2017 and 2022, with over 60 percent of victims being people of color, many of them immigrants or new arrivals.
How to Submit a Tip
Investigators are still asking anyone with information about the shooting or the black sedan seen fleeing toward Norwalk to come forward. Tips can be directed to Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department Detective Christopher Dimmitt at 323-890-5545 or [email protected], or submitted anonymously to Crime Stoppers at 800-222-8477.
