Bakersfield Police say a person of interest has been arrested for the murder of five-year-old Kayson Guyton, and that suspect may have been id’d by a suspected gang member who died in an unrelated officer-involved shooting.

Sgt. Ryan Kroeker says the man was taken in during Tuesday’s Operation Blind Mice raids targeting the West Side Crips, but law enforcement had been building their case for months through wiretaps.

A federal indictment says Augustus Crawford told a BPD informant he knew who killed Guyton, though Crawford was never a suspect in that case. The boy was shot in February as he rode in a rival gang member’s car.

That indictment also says officers believe Augustus Crawford had been running a meth trafficking operation to North Dakota oilfield workers for months and was a suspect in a plot to kill several East Side Crips gang members that was broken up.

Crawford was shot last month by Officer Warren Martin, the son of chief Lyle Martin, following a traffic stop on Planz Road near South H Street.

Kelli Pierce