By the age of three, Andrew Enriquez knew he wanted to be a cop.
The Manhattan Beach Police detective still remembers the day his mom buckled him into her car and drove down Sepulveda Boulevard, when she became involved in an accident with a motorcycle at the intersection of Manhattan Beach Boulevard.
Terrified that he would somehow be in trouble for the incident, Enriquez started crying.
“I remember the police officer on scene came up to me. He put me in his police car and turned on the lights for me,” he recalled with a smile. “And that was it. I knew what I wanted to be.”
Thirty years later, Enriquez was named the city’s Officer of the Year at a ceremony last month.
He was nominated by his peers and selected by a committee representative of the entire department for the honor.
“Andrew is a high energy officer with a lot of passion to serve this community,” said MBPD Chief Rod Uyeda, who presented Enriquez with the award. “He has a great attitude and volunteers a lot for tasks that benefit the department and promote teamwork. I was very pleased to see him earn this recognition from his peers.”
Originally from the South Bay, Enriquez, 33, started with MBPD in 1998 after working in a surf shop, delivering pizzas and teaching Tae Kwon Do, while waiting to turn 20 and a half years old — the minimum age required to be a cop. He applied with both Manhattan Beach and Torrance Police Departments in two highly competitive application processes. In Torrance, three positions were available to 500 applicants.
The MBPD snagged Enriquez just in time. Only hours after he was offered the Manhattan job, the TPD called to make an offer.
“I said I’d work for whichever one hired me first,” he said.
Since then, Enriquez has worked in administration, recruiting, patrol and, for the past two years, the detective bureau at the MBPD. As a detective, he is the lead investigator of property crimes — including burglaries and car thefts — and has tracked down suspects as far as San Bernardino.
For the last decade, Enriquez has also been a member of the MBPD’s SWAT team, an elite force that trains for special situations, such as hostage incidents and high-risk arrest warrants, and supports other SWAT teams in surrounding cities.
“He’s had a great year,” MBPD Captain Derek Abell said of Enriquez. “He’s had to work [the property crimes] desk alone for an extended period of time and has worked with little or no supervision with the same vigor and determination as a whole team would.”
Enriquez enjoys working for what he called a “small department with big department assignments.”
“That’s what’s fun about working for a department like Manhattan Beach,’” he said. “Here you get to interact with and meet people. I like that.”
Early in his career, Enriquez was working graveyard patrol and transporting an arrestee when he saw a car coming toward him head on. He pulled the driver over and saw that he was intoxicated. Enriquez arrested him and charged him with a DUI.
A few years later, Enriquez was downtown when a man approached him and asked his name.
“When I told him he shook my hand and said, ‘Thank you. You sobered me up and totally turned my life around,’” Enriquez recalled. “It was the guy I had arrested for the DUI. That was really rewarding.”
Still, some parts of the job are difficult.
Threats from suspects he’s arrested have led to Enriquez being extremely private about his personal life. And he’s never gotten used to delivering death notices — such as the one he delivered to the family of a 16-year-old he knew — which is his least favorite part of the job.
In 2007, a shoulder injury put Enriquez out of commission for a year, during which time he couldn’t work. Though some might enjoy a year off, Enriquez said he was miserable.
“I truly love my job,” he said. “And if I didn’t have bills to pay, I’d still do this. I’d do it for free.”
To women and men interested in working in law enforcement, Enriquez gave this advice.
“Do it because you want to do it. Not for the money or the attention or the power. Just do it because it’s what you want to do and because it’s what you’ll have the most fun doing.” ER
