Bobby Chacon Jr., Son of Boxer, Shot to Death : Street crime: Youth, 17, is gunned down in the parking lot of a department store in Panorama City. Police say the killing is gang-related.

The 17-year-old son of former boxing champion Bobby Chacon, who like his father grew up on hardscrabble streets of Pacoima, was identified Friday as the victim of a gang-related slaying at a Panorama City parking lot, police said.

Bobby Chacon Jr., known by most acquaintances as Chico, was fatally shot Thursday afternoon in the Montgomery Ward parking lot at the Panorama City Center, police said. Arturo Reynoso, 18, of Pacoima, who was with Chacon, was also shot but not seriously injured, police said.

Police said as many as four suspects fled from the 4:45 p.m. shooting and they had not been identified Friday afternoon.

Police said the two victims were members of a Pacoima gang and may have accidentally stumbled into a group of rival gang members while outside of their turf.

“We feel we have a gang-versus-gang thing,” said Sgt. Dennis Zine. “But we don’t know exactly what happened.”

Chacon lived with his grandmother in the Van Nuys Pierce Park Apartments and formerly attended Maclay Junior High School. He was a gifted athlete and popular with other students, Vice Principal Don Ryan said.

Crisis counselors were at the school Friday talking with students who became distraught after word of the slaying spread in classrooms.

“This was a very difficult day for some students here,” Ryan said.

Ryan said acquaintances of the two victims told him at the school Friday that Chacon and Reynoso had been going to Montgomery Ward to apply for jobs.

Chacon’s slaying added another tragic chapter to his family’s history. His mother, Valerie, committed suicide nine years ago after becoming upset because Bobby Chacon Sr. would not retire from boxing.

The elder Chacon’s lengthy career, which included two titles, also was marred by skirmishes outside the ring.

He grew up in Pacoima and, according to news accounts, acknowledged joining a gang.

Chacon’s professional boxing career began in 1972 with 19 straight victories. He later won the World Boxing Council’s featherweight and super-featherweight crowns.

He was put on probation in 1984 after being convicted of beating his second wife. In 1987 he was sentenced to six months in jail in Oroville for violating that probation after investigators found alcohol in his house and a trace of marijuana in his urine.

Chacon Sr., 39, could not be reached for comment.