A high-speed chase across Sacramento County ended in gunfire on Interstate 5 early Tuesday after deputies shot and killed a man wanted in an armed carjacking, closing southbound lanes for much of the morning. By 11:30 a.m., one lane of southbound I-5 had reopened.
The chain of events began around 2:30 a.m., when the Citrus Heights Police Department notified deputies about a carjacking in the city. Edward Igoe said a man pointed a gun at another person, demanded the vehicle and threatened to kill the victim and any law enforcement who responded. At some point during the carjacking, the gunman fired one round before driving away.
Deputies spotted the vehicle around 3 a.m. at Marconi and Eastern avenues in Arden-Arcade and tried to stop it, but the driver kept going. The chase moved through parts of Sacramento County and as far as the Sacramento International Airport before reaching I-5 at Arena Boulevard in Natomas, where deputies said the driver repeatedly pointed his gun at them from outside the window.
Deputies deployed a tire deflation device, but the pursuit did not end there. Igoe said the driver got out of the vehicle on the freeway at Arena Boulevard and pointed his gun at deputies, prompting four deputies to shoot him. Deputies tried to give him medical aid, but he died at the scene. No deputies were injured, and his identity had not been determined.
The shooting shut down southbound I-5 for much of the morning and brought traffic to a halt on one of the region’s main arteries. The case is likely to draw close attention because it began as a carjacking in Citrus Heights and escalated, over the next hour, into a fatal encounter on a freeway shoulder in Natomas.
