BAKERSFIELD, Calif. (KBAK\/KBFX) \u2014 A 21-year-old man was arrested in Ridgecrest for allegedly having an illegal rifle and trying to trade it for two guns.<\/p>\n
The Ridgecrest Police Department said on October 21, 2025, at around 1:45 p.m., officers served a search warrant in the 300 block of North Cisco Street following an investigation that revealed Gavin Pitman, a prohibited person, was in possession of an illegal rifle and tried to trade it for two handguns.<\/p>\n
Police said that through a detailed investigation, officers were able to find both the suspect and the gun.<\/p>\n
RPD said due to the potential danger posed by the high-powered weapon, nearby schools were temporarily placed on lockdown as a precaution.<\/p>\n
The Ridgecrest Police Department deployed its BearCat armored rescue vehicle and members of the Crisis Response Unit (CRU) to safely execute the warrant.<\/p>\n
Officers were able to persuade the suspect to surrender without incident.<\/p>\n
Police said inside the home, officers found a FA-91 .308 caliber rifle, which is classified as an assault weapon under California law.<\/p>\n
Pitman was taken to the Kern County Jail, where he was booked on multiple firearm-related charges, including illegally possessing an assault weapon, selling a firearm without a license, prohibited person possessing a firearm, trespassing, and possession of drug paraphernalia.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur officers demonstrated professionalism and courage in a situation that involved significant risk,\u201d said Chief Mario Ysit. \u201cTheir dedication to keeping Ridgecrest safe reflects the values and commitment of this Department. I\u2019m proud of their efforts and grateful for the teamwork shown by everyone involved.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BAKERSFIELD, Calif. (KBAK\/KBFX) \u2014 A 21-year-old man was arrested in Ridgecrest for allegedly having an illegal rifle and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":20057,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[151,153,152],"class_list":["post-20056","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-bakersfield","tag-bakersfield","tag-bakersfield-headlines","tag-bakersfield-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20056","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=20056"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20056\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20057"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20056"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20056"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20056"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}