An on-duty Sacramento Police Department detective crashed into a disabled pickup truck Tuesday morning on Interstate 5, killing two men standing near the truck, authorities said. The police vehicle, an unmarked Ford Fusion, was heading southbound on I-5 around 6:15 a.m. when it crashed into a white Dodge pickup truck stopped on the right shoulder just south of Sutterville Road, the California Highway Patrol’s South Sacramento office said in a news release. The Ford struck the left rear end of the Dodge, then hit two people standing on the driver’s side of the pickup, according to the CHP.
One pedestrian was pronounced dead at the scene by the Sacramento Fire Department, and the second died while en route to a hospital, CHP officials said. The detective involved in the collision was not injured, the Police Department said in a Twitter thread Tuesday morning.
“The California Highway Patrol is the lead investigating agency on the collision, and the Sacramento Police Department is cooperating fully with the investigation,” the Police Department tweeted. After the Dodge pulled over onto the right shoulder of the freeway, a Toyota SUV parked nearby on the left shoulder of the Sutterville Road ramp to I-5, according to the CHP news release. The Toyota driver was standing near the Dodge driver when both were struck by the police vehicle. The pedestrians were identified Tuesday by the Sacramento County Coroner’s Office as Lionel Enriquez Rodriguez, 32, of Simi Valley; and Juan Carlos Enriquez Rodriguez, 33, of Sacramento.
The Sacramento Police Department deferred inquiries related to the incident to the CHP. CHP South Sacramento in its news release said the crash and its cause remain under investigation, and that the detective’s vehicle hit the Dodge and the two pedestrians “for an unknown reason.” The right two lanes of southbound I-5 were closed at Sutterville Road for several hours due to the crash, along with the southbound Sutterville exit, Caltrans said.