A man walked into a Colfax gas station in the early morning hours of August 11 and left with alcohol he never paid for, but not before pointing a large pistol at the clerk who tried to stop him. Placer County Sheriff's Office deputies responded to the scene and, within hours, used regional license plate camera technology to track the suspect's silver sedan across county lines into Grass Valley, where he was taken into custody.
According to the Placer Sheriff, the victim reported that the suspect brandished the weapon before fleeing the scene in the sedan. Deputies issued a be-on-the-lookout alert to surrounding law enforcement agencies, and detectives with the Placer County Sheriff's Office Crimes Against Persons unit used automated license plate reader technology to identify the vehicle. That system, built through a $238,600 contract Placer County approved with Flock Group Inc. in March 2023, links 42 cameras across county corridors and is integrated with partner agencies in Grass Valley, Auburn, Roseville, Lincoln and Rocklin, according to Placer County records.
Grass Valley Officers Help Close In
The suspect and his vehicle were already known to Grass Valley Police Department officers, who assisted Placer County detectives in locating both the car and 19-year-old Joshua Paulin Jr. shortly after the alert went out. Grass Valley officers also helped detectives locate additional evidence connected to the case. Detectives went on to serve search warrants and recovered a firearm along with additional evidence from the vehicle and from Paulin himself, per the Placer Sheriff's account.
Colfax sits at the junction of Interstate 80 and State Route 174, a small Sierra Nevada foothills town of just 1,995 residents covering about 1.4 square miles, according to Wikipedia. Grass Valley lies roughly 13 miles away along that same highway corridor, a route that Rome2Rio notes directly links the two communities across the Placer and Nevada county line.
Custody Complicated by Outstanding Warrant
Paulin, who resides in Nevada County, was booked into Nevada County Jail on an outstanding Sacramento County warrant rather than directly into Placer County custody. Separately, Placer County detectives obtained their own arrest warrant for Paulin in connection with the Colfax robbery. Under California criminal procedure, Paulin will be transferred to Placer County to face charges related to the robbery only after his commitment in Sacramento County is complete.
Those charges are expected to include second-degree robbery under Penal Code Section 211, which classifies the offense as a felony carrying two to five years in state prison and counts as a strike under California's Three Strikes law, according to the Shouse Law Group. If the firearm allegation is proven, Paulin would also face a mandatory consecutive 10-year sentence enhancement under Penal Code 12022.53(b), the state's so-called “10-20-Life” law, which applies whenever a firearm is personally used during a robbery regardless of whether it was loaded or fired, per Eisner Gorin LLP.
Enhancements Reflect a Statewide Pattern
Firearm enhancements like the one Paulin could face are common in California's prison system. More than 93,000 state prison inmates — over 80% of the state's prison population — were serving sentences lengthened by statutory enhancements such as firearm use under Penal Code 12022.53 as of 2024, according to data reported by San Quentin News.
The case also lands amid renewed scrutiny of how Placer County shares license plate data with neighboring agencies. A Placer County Civil Grand Jury report released in July found that uninterrupted real-time sharing of ALPR alerts between departments is essential for public safety, and that past restrictions on sharing plate data had increased risks during vehicle pursuits, according to Police1.
The Placer County Sheriff's Office, established in 1851, covers a roughly 1,400-square-mile jurisdiction stretching from the Sacramento Valley east to Lake Tahoe, and it routinely coordinates with municipal police departments across that stretch of Sierra foothill communities. Last September, Placer deputies teamed with Roseville police and Nevada County law enforcement to intercept suspects fleeing an attempted robbery near Grass Valley along Interstate 80, underscoring how frequently the two counties' law enforcement agencies work the same corridor together.
Several details remain unresolved, including the exact nature of the Sacramento County warrant that landed Paulin in Nevada County Jail, the specific gas station targeted in Colfax, and when Placer County prosecutors intend to formally arraign him on the robbery charges.
