Prep Athlete From Norwalk Shot to Death

A Norwalk John Glenn High School sports star was gunned down about two blocks from his home Tuesday in what an officer of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department said may have been a gang-related shooting.

Juan Enriquez, 18, was pronounced dead at Pioneer Hospital in Norwalk about 45 minutes after being shot in the back while walking down Horst Avenue with fellow athlete William Sevilla, 18, said sheriff’s deputy Van Mosely.

Mosely said only one shot was fired from a car that moved slowly past the athletes. Williams was uninjured in the attack.

Enriquez, known as Chaca among Glenn students, won the Southern Section 1-A wrestling championship last March in the heavyweight division. He then qualified for the state championships, where he lost in the first round to the eventual champion.

Also, Enriquez was an All-Suburban League lineman in football and was captain of the Eagles’ teams in wrestling and football. He also put the shot in track and field, but did not compete this season after suffering a minor rib injury in the state wrestling tournament, said Leon Estes, Glenn’s assistant principal.

Estes said Enriquez lived in a neighborhood known as Barrio Norwalk, where much gang activity occurs, but “in the three years that I knew Chaca he wasn’t involved.”

Said Glenn football Coach Willie Norman: “He came from a rough neighborhood. I can tell you one thing, he was a leader out there (in the neighborhood). They looked up to him.”

The 5-foot-10, 230-pound Enriquez this week was selected to participate in this summer’s 605 all-star game.

Estes said Enriquez wanted to attend either Rio Hondo or Cerritos community colleges to study law enforcement.

“He was going to be a police officer,” Estes said.

Estes said Enriquez’s father died last year, and that the youth was living with his mother, and at least three brothers.

Times staff writer Nieson Himmel contributed to this story.