A dramatic hostage scenario played out in Central California overnight Tuesday, when a convicted sex offender barricaded himself in a building, threatened to blow himself up and was killed by the FBI, authorities said.
Police and FBI officials said Anthony Scott Searles-Harris, 41, walked into a Chase Bank building in downtown Bakersfield on Tuesday afternoon claiming to have explosives “attached to his person,” tied up hostages on the second floor, and locked himself and everyone else inside.
Authorities later determined that the explosives were not real, according to a department spokesperson.
Searles-Harris was convicted of committing sex acts with underage girls, sentenced to prison and released in 2018, according to online records. He was most recently living in the 500 block of Oildale Drive in Bakersfield, the department spokesperson said.
In a video uploaded to YouTube in October titled “Labeled a Monster,” Searles-Harris accused law enforcement of planting evidence in his case. He also said that the media was complicit in his conviction by publicizing the “false allegations” against him.
His precise motive remains unclear. Police, however, are examining previous statements he shared on social media, according to Jeremy Blakemore, assistant chief of the Bakersfield Police Department.
“He had some concerns related to how his previous case had been handled, and what the aftermath of that was, the sentencing, and those types of things,” Blakemore said.
The hostage crisis began Tuesday around 1 p.m. when police officers responded to reports of a man with an explosive device who had entered the Chase Bank building on 17th Street, according to Blakemore.