7 face federal charges for aiding suspect in officer slaying

UPDATE: 1/25/2019 12:08 p.m. Seven friends and relatives of a Mexican national charged with the shooting death of a Northern California police officer have been indicted on federal charges for allegedly helping him evade capture.

U.S. Attorney Scott said Friday a federal grand jury indicted the five men and two women with charges of “conspiring to harbor an alien” for helping Gustavo Perez Arriaga, who is in the country illegally.

Federal prosecutors say Perez Arriaga’s two brothers, his girlfriend and four friends conspired to help him evade capture after he fatally shot Newman Police Cpl. Ronil Singh on Dec. 26.

They say the seven defendants transported and housed Perez Arriaga and gave him clothes, money, and a new cellphone. They also allegedly hid his pickup truck and made plans to smuggle him to Mexico.

UPDATE: 12/28/2018 12:22 p.m. Authorities say the man accused of killing a California police officer during a traffic stop has been captured.

Stanislaus County Sheriff Adam Christianson told reporters Friday that Gustavo Perez Arriaga was arrested in Bakersfield in the death of a Newman police officer.

Perez Arriaga is accused of killing Cpl. Singh on Wednesday after being stopped on suspicion of drunken driving.

A day later and nearly 200 miles (320 kilometers) south, authorities 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.

Sheriff Christianson said 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.

Two other men, 25-year-old Adrian Virgen and 27-year-old Erik Razo Quiroz, were arrested Thursday for helping Arriaga escape after he shot and killed Corporal Singh.

Adrian Virgen pictured below:

Virgen was arrested in Hanford. Quiroz was arrested in Modesto.

Quiroz pictured below:

Kern County Sheriff Donny Youngblood told reporters that Arriaga came out of a home in Bakersfield with his hands up after SWAT officers came to arrest him Friday.

He says that besides Arriaga’s brother and co-worker, three others were arrested on suspicion of helping the suspect elude authorities.

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A man wanted for shooting and killing a police officer in Northern California Wednesday has been captured in the Bakersfield area, according to a report.

The Modesto Bee newspaper reported Friday that the suspect in the slaying of 33-year-old Newman Police Cpl. Ronil Singh was caught either Thursday night or Friday morning. No further details were confirmed.

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The suspect was not immediately identified. The Stanislaus County Sheriff’s Department was scheduled to hold a press conference at noon, the Bee reports.

Singh was shot just before 1 a.m. Wednesday, a few minutes after radioing in that he was pulling over a gray pickup truck that had no license plate in Newman, a town of about 10,000 people some 85 miles east of San Jose.

Singh was rushed to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead.

A truck believed to have been the one stopped by Singh was later found in a garage in a mobile home park about four miles from the shooting.

Singh was a native of Fiji and the father of an infant son. He joined the Newman police force in 2011. Earlier in his career, Ronil Singh worked as a deputy with the Merced County Sheriff’s Department.

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