UCLA graduate Amanda Torres was at a party in DTLA last January when she stepped between her alleged killer to protect her brother, prosecutors say
Amanda Torres had everything to live for on the night her life ended last January. She had recently graduated from UCLA. The 28-year-old was helping victims of the deadly wildfires that had ripped through Los Angeles County as a community activist. She loved to dance and “moved like she was made of music,” her family said.
But on the morning side of midnight on Jan. 26, Torres stepped between her brother, who was being set upon at an after-hours warehouse party by a group that allegedly included James Joshua Lopez, 24, when she stepped in to protect him and lost her life, witnesses told police. Lopez was soon charged with the stabbing death and has been held on $2 million bail on murder charges.
He is expected in a Los Angeles courtroom this week for a pretrial hearing as his alleged victim’s loved ones prepare to mark the grim anniversary of her killing.
Her death reverberated throughout Los Angeles because of what her family called a tireless dedication to others, a woman who “moved like she was made of music.” Affectionately known as “Dandy Mandie,” her obituary describes her as “a force of nature, a chingona in every sense of the word. She was an activist, an educator, a raver, a daughter, a sister, a friend, and above all, an unwavering source of inspiration.”