{"id":466185,"date":"2026-09-17T00:54:24","date_gmt":"2026-09-17T00:54:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/466185\/"},"modified":"2026-09-17T00:54:24","modified_gmt":"2026-09-17T00:54:24","slug":"man-killed-in-sacramento-county-highway-50-police-shooting-had-pellet-gun","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/466185\/","title":{"rendered":"Man killed in Sacramento County Highway 50 police shooting had pellet gun"},"content":{"rendered":"

Man fatally shot by law enforcement on Highway 50 in Sacramento County had pellet gun<\/p>\n

\"JonathanORANGEVALE, Calif. \u2014<\/p>\n

The man who was fatally shot by law enforcement on Highway 50 in Sacramento last week had a pellet gun and not a firearm, the California Highway Patrol said Wednesday.<\/p>\n

Around 11:20 p.m. on Sept. 7, officers tried to pull over a driver whose vehicle had its headlights off on Folsom Boulevard. But CHP said the driver did not stop, prompting a pursuit that took them through the Rancho Cordova and Fair Oaks area.<\/p>\n

After more than 40 minutes since the attempted stop, officers spike-stripped the vehicle, and the vehicle stopped along Highway 50 at Hazel Avenue. The driver got out of the vehicle with what law enforcement thought was a gun, and CHP said its officers, along with the Sacramento County Sheriff’s Office and the Citrus Heights Police Department, fired their weapons.<\/p>\n

The man was taken to a hospital, where he later died of his injuries, CHP said. The Sacramento County coroner identified the man as 61-year-old Joseph Alexander Vanzan of Carmichael.<\/p>\n

Highway 50 was closed for more than nine hours because of the shooting investigation that led to multiple mobile command centers stationed on the freeway.<\/p>\n

In the days following the shooting, CHP, in an email, confirmed Vanzan had a pellet gun in his possession. The agency also confirmed that one CHP officer fired their weapon.<\/p>\n

The Sacramento County Sheriff’s Office also previously stated that only one of its deputies fired his weapon. It is unclear how many officers from Citrus Heights police were involved in the shooting.<\/p>\n

No law enforcement personnel were injured in the shooting, CHP said. CHP is the lead investigator and is reviewing body-worn camera and dashcam footage.<\/p>\n

This was the first of three deadly situations on Highway 50 that Tuesday. The second was when a man executed a woman outside of a Panera Bread on Howe Avenue before killing himself during a standoff with Sacramento deputies on Highway 50 at Watt Avenue. Read what we know about that investigation here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

A pedestrian was killed after being struck on the W\/X portion of the highway east of Interstate 5. Full story here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

See news happening? Send us your photos or videos if it\u2019s safe to do so at kcra.com\/upload<\/a>.<\/p>\n

See more coverage of top California stories here<\/a> | Download our app<\/a> | Subscribe to our morning newsletter<\/a> | Find us on YouTube here and subscribe to our channel<\/a> | Make KCRA a preferred news source in Google<\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Man fatally shot by law enforcement on Highway 50 in Sacramento County had pellet gun ORANGEVALE, Calif. \u2014…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":466186,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[17331,859,852,183572,117499,69907,167,287,21691,8528,31070,180427,1575,1571,183574,473,734,1555,183573,2322,180907,609,2727,121,357,181092,123,122,48810,180266,178,22653,5585],"class_list":["post-466185","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sacramento","tag-body-worn-camera","tag-california-highway-patrol","tag-chp","tag-citrus-heights-police","tag-citrus-heights-police-department","tag-dashcam-footage","tag-deputy","tag-driver","tag-fair-oaks","tag-fatal-shooting","tag-folsom-boulevard","tag-hazel-avenue","tag-highway","tag-highway-50","tag-highway-50-closure","tag-kcra","tag-law-enforcement","tag-man","tag-mobile-command-centers","tag-officer","tag-pellet-gun","tag-police-shooting","tag-rancho-cordova","tag-sacramento","tag-sacramento-county","tag-sacramento-county-highway","tag-sacramento-headlines","tag-sacramento-news","tag-sacramento-sheriffs-office","tag-sept-7","tag-vehicle","tag-video-player","tag-weapon"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/466185","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=466185"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/466185\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/466186"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=466185"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=466185"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=466185"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}