UPDATE (1:20 p.m.) – Authorities say a man accused of killing a California police officer surrendered without incident.
Kern County Sheriff Donny Youngblood told reporters that Gustavo Perez Arriaga, 32, came out of a home in Bakersfield with his hands up after SWAT officers came to arrest him Friday.
He says that besides Perez Arriaga’s brother and co-worker, three others were arrested on suspicion of helping the suspect elude authorities.
Perez Arriaga is accused of killing Cpl. Ronil Singh of the tiny Newman Police Department on Wednesday after being stopped on suspicion of drunken driving.
A day later and nearly 200 miles south, Youngblood says he received information that Perez Arriaga was between Modesto and Bakersfield and heading to Mexico.
Surveillance teams were set up in different communities, and authorities got a search warrant for the home where Perez Arriaga was found.
The Kern County Sheriff's Office holds a press conference on the arrest of Gustavo Perez Arriaga, the suspect in the killing of a Newman police officer.
Posted by KSBY on Friday, December 28, 2018
UPDATE (12:15 p.m.) – The Stanislaus County Sheriff has identified the suspect in the killing of a Newman police officer as Gustavo Perez Arriaga.
Stanislaus County Sheriff Adam Christianson told reporters Friday that Arriaga was arrested in Bakersfield in the death of Cpl. Ronil Singh.
The sheriff says Perez Arriaga was in the country illegally after crossing the border in Arizona. He didn’t say when that happened but that he has been in the U.S. for several years.
Christianson says Perez Arriaga is from Mexico and was trying to cross back over the border before his arrest.
The sheriff says Perez Arriaga had two prior drunken driving arrests and known gang affiliations.
(10:41 a.m.) – The man wanted for killing a police officer in Newman has been arrested south of Bakersfield, NBC News affiliate KGET reported Friday, citing multiple sources.
Kern County Sheriff Donny Youngblood has scheduled a news conference for 1 p.m.
Corporal Ronil Singh of the Newman Police Department was shot to death on Dec. 26 during a traffic stop.
KGET reports that photos of the suspected cop killer have circulated on social media over the last few days, but officials did not release his identity. They did say he is in the U.S. illegally, as reported by Stanislaus County Sheriff Adam Christianson on Thursday.
Singh was a K-9 officer for the Newman Police Department for seven years. His K-9 partner, Sam, was with him during the shooting and survived.
