Police Look for Link to Fatal Anaheim Shootings : Violence: Two men are killed and two others wounded in separate attacks within minutes and a few blocks of each other.

ANAHEIM —  Police are looking for any connection between four men who were shot, two fatally, within 10 minutes and a few blocks of each other Wednesday night, including a teen-age boxer who once placed second in a national championship.

“We’re still trying to figure this whole thing out,” said police Sgt. Steve Rodig. “There’s nothing to connect them through physical evidence, but because of the time and the close proximity, we are looking into the possibility that they are related.”

Police have made no arrests and don’t know the motive for either shooting.

The first shooting occurred just after 8 p.m. in front of an apartment complex in the 1500 block of Palm Avenue and was witnessed by several residents.

“We heard shots in the distance, looked out the door and saw about seven people running down the alley,” said Bill Bangert, 70, manager of the complex. “We heard someone say, ‘Don’t! Don’t!’ Then we heard bang, bang. The (gunman) started to run, then he turned around and fired another shot. I guess he figured he didn’t kill him.”

Ruben Flores, 19, was found a short distance away lying in the street. He had been shot in the torso.

“We ran out to him and he was begging us to call his grandmother,” Bangert said. “We brought a blanket out to him and waited for the police to get here.”

Flores was in stable condition Thursday at an undisclosed local hospital.

A second man shot in that gunfire, Fred Leglar, 21, of Anaheim ran to his girlfriend’s apartment in that complex, where he collapsed and died.

About 10 minutes later and a few blocks away, in the 1500 block of Crone Street, police responded to more reports of gunfire. Officers found no victims there, but a few blocks away, in the 800 block of Aspen Street, they found two wounded men in a car.

One of the men, 19-year-old Jose Aguirre, had been shot in the head and died at the hospital, police said.

“He had just gone on out to buy hamburgers and he got shot in the head,” said the victim’s father, Luis Aguirre, 40, who worked with his son at the Disneyland Hotel.

“It had to be a mistake,” the father added.

Aguirre’s friend, 20-year-old Isaac Torres, was driving the car and was shot in the upper torso. He is in stable condition at an undisclosed hospital, police said.

Jose Aguirre, a 1993 graduate of Anaheim High School, was a promising boxer who had won 27 of 30 bouts during a successful junior career. His record included a runner-up finish at the 1991 Silver Gloves National Championships in Des Moines, Iowa, and a quarterfinal finish in the 1991 Junior Olympic Championships, said Rip Icenhower, the trainer who worked with Aguirre at the Anaheim Boxing Club.

“He had heart,” Icenhower said. “He was such a beautiful kid. I loved him like a son. I thought he was safe. He had graduated from high school, he was working. When the hell is this violence going to stop?”

Anaheim Police Officer Lou Lopez, a 25-year member of the force, served as a trainer and a mentor to Aguirre at the boxing club. The officer said the teen-ager was considering going into professional boxing.

“He had fought all over the United States,” said Lopez, a member of the Anaheim Union School District Board of Education. “He was one of those kids who really had the potential to really get involved with gangs, but the boxing gave him the opportunity to travel around and to see that everything did not revolve around his homeboys.”

Rodig said Aguirre was not a known gang member and that his death may have been a case of mistaken identity.

Lopez said the Aguirre family had moved into their first home only two years ago after living in an apartment in Anaheim’s crime-ridden Jeffrey-Lynne neighborhood.

“His father worked so hard to buy that house and his parents were real supportive,” the officer said.

On Thursday morning, family members and friends gathered in front of the slain teen-ager’s home to grieve.

“Whoever took him out was wrong,” said the victim’s 17-year-old brother, Peter Aguirre, who is also an accomplished boxer. “My brother was one of those guys who shouldn’t have died.”

Lopez said the family needs help in paying for Aguirre’s funeral and is asking for donations. They can be sent to the Anaheim Police Department, c/o Officer Lou Lopez, 425 S. Harbor Blvd., Anaheim, Calif. 92805. Checks can be made out to the Aguirre family.