BAKERSFIELD, CA - All 10 hostages were safe after a more than 15-hour standoff that began early Tuesday afternoon and stretched into Wednesday morning at a Bakersfield office building before ending in a law enforcement shooting, police said.

The hostage situation concluded at about 4 a.m. Wednesday at the multi-story building, which houses a Chase bank branch on the first floor and school district office in the Kern County community about 100 miles north of Los Angeles. The hostages were identified by police as school district employees, none of whom were injured, police said.

The suspect was pronounced dead at the scene. Details about how the suspect died were not immediately available, but authorities said the standoff concluded with a law enforcement shooting.

"All hostages were located unharmed and received medical evaluation and treatment at the scene," Bakersfield police said, adding department officers were not involved in the use of force.

Bakersfield Police Assistant Chief Jeremy Blakemore said the suspect, 41-year-old Anthony Scott Searles-Harris, took 10 employees of the Kern County Superintendent of Schools (KCSOS) hostage on the building's second floor. The suspect told authorities that he had explosives attached to his body and the hostages, which law enforcement officers confirmed, Blakemore said.

The KCSOS and employees did not appear to be intended targets, Blakemore said.

There were multiple improvised explosive devices that presented concerns, Sid Patel, of the FBI Sacramento Field Office said.

Patel said Searles-Harris was in the U.S. Army from 2006 to 2007, but was dishonorably discharged for going absent without leave.

The standoff unfolded Tuesday at about 1 p.m. when Bakersfield police said a man barricaded himself inside the building. Crisis negotiators and negotiators with the FBI responded to the location after law enforcement investigated a bomb threat call.

Witnesses told NBCLA that around 2:30 a.m. dozens of 50 SWAT members swarmed the bank and brought a man, possibly the suspect, out of the building overnight. Video showed officers escorting a group of about seven people from the building.

Nearby buildings were evacuated. Residents were urged to avoid the area, which remained blocked off Wednesday with yellow police tape. (Source: KNBC)

Story Date: June 4, 2026