A gunman who seized ten school employees and claimed he had strapped explosives to his body has been shot dead after a dramatic hostage siege in California.
Armed officers stormed the Bakersfield office block overnight, ending a tense 16‑hour standoff in which the suspect tied up several of his captives and insisted he had also planted explosives on them, according to the Mirror.
All ten hostages, staff from the Kern County Superintendent of Schools, were rescued unharmed from the building, which also houses a Chase bank, Assistant Police Chief Jeremy Blakemore said.
View 3 ImagesAnthony Scott Searles-Harris, 41, was shot and killed around 4:20am,(Image: AP Photo/David Dennis)
“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 (June 3)
Anthony Scott Searles-Harris, 41, was shot and killed around 4:20am, according to Sid Patel, special agent in charge in the FBI’s Sacramento office. Officials disclosed that he was an Army veteran who was dishonourably discharged, and that he 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, Blakemore said. Authorities were testing the devices that Searles-Harris said were explosives, but Patel said they do not appear to be a concern.
Officers were able to communicate with one of the hostage via her mobile phone until the battery died, Patel said. She was diabetic and didn’t have her medicine so officials knew she was at risk, he added.
“I’m sure there’ll be mental scars that they’re living with, and we’ll have our victim specialist to help them.” Authorities declined to discuss a motive in the standoff, though Police Chief Jeremy Blakemore said some of the demands Searles-Harris made involved asking for materials from an earlier case.
View 3 ImagesFBI at the scene of the stand-off(Image: AP Photo/David Dennis)
“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, without specifying details.
Searles-Harris was on the state’s sex offender registry due to convictions in 2014 for sex crimes related to a child under 14 years of age, according to California Department of Justice and court records. He was released from prison in 2018.
The gunman had served about a year in the Army before being dishonourably discharged in 2007 for going AWOL., according to the FBI. Court records in Kern County, California, show Searles-Harris filed a petition to prevent domestic violence, and was involved in divorce proceedings that began in 2009 and note a young child, as well as a fight for guardianship years later in which he was listed as an objector.
During the press conference, Mr Blakemore confirmed he was aware of videos in which Searles‑Harris attacked the sheriff’s office and insisted he had been wrongly convicted of past sex offences. He said the footage was being reviewed, but there were no plans to reopen or investigate the claims of innocence.
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“What unfolded was undoubtedly a terribly frightening and unsettling experience, and the composure our employees demonstrated throughout the 16-hour ordeal was extraordinary, John Mendiburu, the county schools superintendent, said in a statement.
The standoff took place early Tuesday afternoon after officers were called to reports of a bomb threat at the Chase Bank building, a four‑storey block with dark‑tinted windows in Bakersfield, a city of around 380,000 people roughly 100 miles northeast of Los Angeles.
Police negotiators spent hours speaking with Searles‑Harris by phone, and he eventually released two hostages on Tuesday night. Nearby buildings, including City Hall and the police headquarters just a block away, were evacuated as roads were sealed off during the unfolding crisis.
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More than 100 FBI personnel were drafted in, including two SWAT teams, bomb technicians and crisis negotiators. A specialist hostage rescue team was even flown in from its East Coast headquarters to support the operation, officials said