Sacramento detective pleads not guilty to manslaughter in I-5 crash that killed two brothers

A Sacramento police officer charged with fatally striking two brothers with his vehicle on Interstate 5 while on duty last year pleaded not guilty Monday to manslaughter in Sacramento Superior Court.

Detective Jonathan Nangle is charged with two misdemeanor counts of vehicular manslaughter in the Dec. 5 deaths of Lionel Enriquez Rodriguez, 32, of Simi Valley; and Juan Carlos Enriquez Rodriguez, 33, of Sacramento.

Nangle didn’t appear in court Monday; his lawyer, private defense attorney Joe Hoffman, entered not guilty pleas on the defendant’s behalf.

Prosecutors said Nangle failed to maintain his road’s lane while driving his “unmarked home retention vehicle” — a department-issued Ford Fusion sedan — on I-5 near Sutterville Road around 6 a.m. He is accused of striking a white Dodge pickup truck on the right shoulder and then the two brothers standing on the road on the driver’s side of the pickup, according to The Sacramento Bee’s previous reporting.

The California Highway Patrol has said the detective’s vehicle hit the Dodge and the two pedestrians “for an unknown reason.” Nangle was not hurt in the crash.

Nangle, an eight-year veteran of the department, is on administrative leave, the Sacramento Police Department said Monday. He was arrested on a warrant issued by a judge in early September, turned himself in at the Sacramento County Sheriff’s Office and was processed and released the same day, the department said at the time in a social media post.

Hoffman said his office received discovery from prosecutors. Attorneys will return Jan. 22 for a pretrial conference.

The mother of the two victims, Virginia Carranza, filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the city and Nangle earlier this year.

The next court date in the civil case is a case management conference scheduled for March 22.

This story was originally published November 27, 2023 at 2:43 PM.