Advertisement

Sacramento cop involved in fatal I-5 crash identified. It wasn’t his first on-duty collision

The California Highway Patrol on Thursday released the name of the on-duty Sacramento police detective who was driving a vehicle that fatally struck brothers standing near a disabled pickup along Interstate 5.

Detective Jonathon Thomas Nangle, 31, was driving a department-issued sedan Tuesday morning that struck and killed Lionel Enriquez Rodriguez, 32, of Simi Valley; and Juan Carlos Enriquez Rodriguez, 33, of Sacramento.

The Sacramento Police Department vehicle, an unmarked Ford Fusion, was heading south on I-5 around 6:15 a.m. when it crashed into a white Dodge pickup stopped on the right shoulder, just south of Sutterville Road, according to the CHP’s South Sacramento office.

Officer Chad Lewis, a police spokesman, said on Thursday that Nangle remained employed by the Police Department. The department has declined to comment further, referring all questions about the crash to the CHP. It is not known whether Nangle remains on duty or has been placed on leave.

Detective involved in 2021 crash

Nangle was behind the wheel while on duty in an April 2021 collision, according to a civil lawsuit filed in Sacramento Superior Court.

That crash occurred in south Sacramento at the intersection of Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard and 47th Avenue, according to the lawsuit filed in July 2021. The complaint, filed by Emily Keophommachak via an attorney, named the city and Nangle as defendants.

Keophommachak was injured in the crash, according to the complaint. She suffered the loss of use of property, hospital and medical expenses, general damage and property damage.

City spokesman Tim Swanson said the city paid $15,000 to settle the matter.

Nangle has been a city employee since September 2013, according to a city roster The Sacramento Bee obtained through a California Public Records Act request. As of July, he was assigned to the unit handling major property crimes, and his base salary was roughly $133,000.

Brothers were on shoulder of freeway

The CHP said the Ford struck the left rear end of the Dodge, then hit the Rodriguez brothers standing on the driver’s side of the pickup.

The Dodge had pulled over onto the right shoulder of the freeway before the fatal crash. A Toyota sport utility vehicle had parked nearby on the left shoulder of the Sutterville Road ramp to I-5. The CHP has said the Toyota driver was standing near the Dodge driver when both were struck by the police vehicle.

The CHP has said the detective’s vehicle hit the Dodge and the two pedestrians “for an unknown reason.”

One of the men was pronounced dead at the scene by the Sacramento Fire Department, and the second died en route to a hospital. Nangle, a resident of Rocklin, was not injured in the crash, police said.

The CHP said the crash remains under investigation but did not release any new information about the crash or its cause. The Police Department said it is “cooperating fully” with the CHP.