A man was shot and killed by the FBI early Wednesday after holding 10 school employees hostage, including some who were tied up, and warning he had strapped explosives to himself and some of the hostages inside a Southern California office building, police said.
Authorities stormed the building in downtown Bakersfield and shot the suspect, ending a more than 15-hour standoff, police said.
The hostages — employees of the Kern County Superintendent of Schools — were found unharmed inside the building that also houses a bank, said Bakersfield Assistant Police Chief Jeremy Blakemore.
“Throughout the night their families questioned whether or not they would be seen again but we are very grateful for the outcome,” Blakemore said during a news conference Wednesday.
Anthony Scott Searles-Harris, 41, was shot and killed around 4:20 a.m., according to Sid Patel, special agent in charge in the FBI’s Sacramento office. Authorities said he was an Army veteran who was dishonorably discharged, had a history of trouble with law enforcement and was a registered sex offender.
Searles-Harris told police he had a bomb after barricading himself within the second floor of the building and taking the hostages, Blakemore said.
"He had concerns related to how his previous case had been handled and what the aftermath of that was, the sentencing and those kinds of things,” Blakemore said.
Authorities were testing the devices that Searles-Harris said were bombs, but Patel said they do not appear to be a concern.
FBI officials said Searles-Harris served about a year in the Army before being dishonorably discharged for going AWOL.
California Department of Justice and court records show Searles-Harris was on the state’s sex offender registry due to convictions in 2014 for sexual crimes related to a child under 14 years of age. Those records show he was released from prison in 2018.
Source: WPLG
