Two Arrested in Connection with Fatal Shooting During Catalytic Converter Theft in Inglewood

INGLEWOOD, Calif. (KABC) – Author­i­ties announced Fri­day that two sus­pects have been arrest­ed more than a week after a man was shot and killed while attempt­ing to stop a cat­alyt­ic con­vert­er theft out­side his Ingle­wood home.

The Ingle­wood Police Depart­ment report­ed that both sus­pects were tak­en into cus­tody fol­low­ing a sev­en-hour stand­off with the department’s SWAT team. Addi­tion­al details, includ­ing the iden­ti­ties of the sus­pects, have not yet been released.

The inci­dent occurred last Tues­day around 3:22 a.m. in the 1000 block of North Chester Avenue. Accord­ing to loved ones, Juan Sanchez was prepar­ing to leave for work when he heard a noise com­ing from his neighbor’s prop­er­ty and attempt­ed to inter­vene. Police stat­ed that Sanchez was shot in the chest and lat­er suc­cumbed to his injuries.

Sur­veil­lance footage cap­tured the sus­pects flee­ing south on North Chester Avenue and then east on 65th Street. A Ring cam­era also record­ed the shoot­ing, pro­vid­ing crit­i­cal evi­dence in the inves­ti­ga­tion.

Sanchez’s fam­i­ly described him as a hard­work­ing and car­ing indi­vid­ual who was thrilled about a recent pro­mo­tion at Clean Har­bors and had just com­plet­ed a project in the Pal­isades Fire zone. His sis­ter, Susana Sanchez, expressed the family’s grief, say­ing, “It’s been a very dif­fi­cult time try­ing to under­stand how some­body could do this to anoth­er human being.”

Sanchez leaves behind his wife, two chil­dren, and a grand­son. He was also an active church vol­un­teer and was remem­bered in a GoFundMe cam­paign as a “devot­ed hus­band, a lov­ing father, a proud grand­fa­ther, and a cher­ished friend to so many.”

The trag­ic inci­dent has drawn par­al­lels to the killing of Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal actor John­ny Wac­tor, who was fatal­ly shot in down­town Los Ange­les last May while con­fronting thieves attempt­ing to steal the cat­alyt­ic con­vert­er from his car.

The arrests bring a mea­sure of clo­sure to the case, but the com­mu­ni­ty con­tin­ues to mourn the loss of a beloved fam­i­ly man and ded­i­cat­ed com­mu­ni­ty mem­ber.