I met Jose Bolaños before I ever knew Edgar. Jose was boxing in an LA parking lot with some other Mara Salvatrucha gang members. I took his picture. It was 1993.
Two years later while I was in El Salvador I met a kid who looked very familiar. When he saw my boxing picture he said, “That’s my brother. They killed him in Los Angeles. Can I keep it? I don’t have any pictures of my brother.” That is how Edgar and I became friends.
I got to know Edgar’s family and we have kept in touch over all these years. Ana is now a US citizen and Rocio has grown into a beautiful young lady.
When I won an award for my work in 1999 I wanted to invite the family to my exhibition so I called Ana. She became tearful on the phone. “I would have called you when it happened,” she began saying, “but I couldn’t find your number.” Then Ana told me what had happened a few months before.
On January 9, 1999, after breakfast Edgar’s girlfriend began nursing their two-month-old son. He didn’t want to smoke in the house so he grabbed his cigarettes and told his girl he’d be back in a few minutes. He never returned.
Witnesses who spoke with Ana said that a car with polarized windows drove up and someone blasted Edgar’s chest full of bullets. The police claimed they had no clues. But people in the barrio told Ana that the drive-by shooting was done by a death squad of local vigilantes.
Edgar was 20 years old.