Two Kern County sheriff’s deputies were wounded Saturday night – one seriously, but expected to recover – after a gunfight in the rugged mountains east of Bakersfield, the sheriff’s department reported Sunday. The man they were trying to arrest escaped.
A posse of law enforcement officers from throughout Kern County closed several communities in the mountains east of Bakersfield Sunday as they searched for a man believed to have killed a resident and wounded two deputies.
Some residents in the Weldon and Kelso Valley areas, southeast of Lake Isabella, were told to lock their doors and stay inside until the killer could be apprehended.
The deputies were hit by bullets from a large-caliber handgun, a spokesman said, during a fire fight with the suspect Saturday at about 8:30 p.m. in a remote ranch near Kelso Valley Road and Jawbone Canyon Road.
The wounded deputy was Michael Booker, a 40-year-old member of the SWAT team, Sheriff Donny Youngblood said. Deputy Jose Perez was injured as he pulled the wounded Booker to safety, the sheriff said.
The two were part of a team search outbuildings at the remote ranch when they came under fire, Youngblood said.
Booker was struck in the shoulder; the bullet traveled down his arm, Youngblood said. A second bullet hit Booker in the wrist, he said. Perez was grazed by a bullet that injured his ear. It was a very near miss, the sheriff said, but Perez immediately returned to the search.
The deputies fired at the killer, but it wasn’t immediately known if he was hit. He escaped into the night.
Booker was airlifted to Antelope Valley Hospital in Lancaster where his wife is at his side, Youngblood said.
The killer is considered heavily armed and dangerous. Anyone with information was asked call asked to call the Sheriff’s Office immediately -- 9-1-1 in an emergency, or 661-861-3110 or 1-800-861-3110.
He was described as a white male, 30-35 years old, 5-foot-8, 160 pounds with long brown hair, blue eyes, dirty in appearance wearing an olive colored t-shirt, olive colored pants, a brown corduroy hat, and a green bandana.
On Saturday, the coroner identified the man killed in cabin in the area as David Louis Markieitz, 64, whose relatives said had retired to the mountains after retiring from his Tehachapi dental practice. Family said they became concerned when they couldn’t reach him Thursday, so they drove to his cabin in the 8600 block of Jawbone Canyon Road. There, just before midnight Thursday, they found his body, the apparent victim of a gunshot wound.
At least 60 officers and support personnel were part the search, which is concentrated in a triangular area between Bakersfield and Tehachapi and Lake Isabella.
The Kern County Sheriff’s and Bakersfield Police SWAT teams, rotating shifts in temperatures that approached 100 degrees over the weekend, led the search, going building to building along dirt roads. A SWAT team from Ridgecrest also was assisting.
Officers from the U.S. Forest Service, the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, the California State Parks Police were on scene.
Two Kern sheriff’s helicopters led the search from the air, joined by a Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department chopper. A Hall Ambulance ‘copter was parked in the area in case it was needed.
Ridgecrest and California City police departments brought in armored tactical vehicles. The Orange County Sheriff’s Department provided night-vision equipment. The Red Cross was providing support, including cots, food, water and portable bathrooms.
It was all taking place in an area that includes some of Kern’s most remote terrain. It is hundreds of square miles of forests, dotted with abandoned gold mines, dirt roads and smaller trails, and campsites. It is an area popular with deer and bear hunters.
There are hundreds of cabins in the area, some occupied year round, and some occupied only seasonally.
That’s where, sheriff’s deputies said, everything began Tuesday at about 7 p.m.
That’s when three young men went to a cabin one of them owned about 15 miles southeast of Twin Oaks, in the rugged hills between Bakersfield and Tehachapi. At the cabin, deputies said, they encountered a man who apparently had been living there without permission.
The man held them hostage for 90 minutes. He escaped on the ATV on which the men arrived, deputies said.
Deputies began an immediate search. The stolen ATV was located about two miles northwest of the cabin. Several guns stolen from the cabin were located with the ATV, but the shotgun used by the man was not located, deputies said.
A search of the area continued Wednesday and Thursday. It intensified and shifted 10-20 miles to the north, along Jawbone Canyon Road and Kelso Valley Road, where Saturday night’s shootout with deputies took place.
