Suspect in Drive-By Slaying Is Freed

A 20-year-old Fullerton man who was arrested in connection with the fatal drive-by shooting last week of a Norwalk high school star athlete was released Tuesday because of lack of evidence, sheriff’s deputies said.

Gilbert Munoz, who was arrested on Monday, was freed when he provided homicide detectives with an alibi that accounted for his whereabouts at the time Juan Enriquez was gunned down on May 9 a block from his home.

Enriquez, 18, a football and wrestling star at John Glenn High School, was on his way home from school for lunch.

“He (Munoz) had a pretty good alibi, but that doesn’t mean the case is closed on him,” said Capt. Ronald Black, commander of the Sheriff’s Department’s Norwalk substation where Munoz had been held.

Detectives checked records from a private computer school that “allegedly showed he (Munoz) was in school at the time of the shooting,” Black said. Munoz was released pending further investigation, sheriff’s deputies said.

Deputies were continuing to search for a 17-year-old youth in connection with the shooting, Black said.

‘Back to Drawing Board’

Detectives believed that they had “good, positive identification” from witnesses when they arrested Munoz, Black said. “Now we are back to the drawing board,” he added.

Black said detectives still believe that Munoz is a member of a Filipino gang based in Cerritos. At the time of the arrest, Black said the gang may have been seeking retaliation against a Norwalk Latino gang for two incidents, which he declined to describe.

When told of the release of Munoz, Enriquez’s brother, Jose, 21, expressed dismay Tuesday.

“I don’t believe it. I don’t know what to say,” Jose Enriquez said.

Norwalk Mayor Grace Napolitano said she was disappointed but that it was important “an innocent man not be held for something he did not do.”

Before Munoz’s arrest, rumors had spread that the shooting was the result of fighting between two rival gangs, the Varrio of Norwalk and the Chivas of Artesia. Black said deputies do not believe members of those two gangs were involved in the shooting.