BAKERSFIELD, Calif. — A man held 10 people hostage inside a California office building before the FBI shot and killed him early Wednesday, bringing the more than 15-hour standoff to an end, police said.<\/p>\n
The hostages were found unharmed inside the downtown Bakersfield building that houses a bank and a school district office, the Bakersfield Police Department said in a statement.<\/p>\n
Anthony Scott Searles-Harris, 41, was shot and killed around 4:20 a.m., according to Sid Patel, of the FBI’s Sacramento field office. Patel said the suspect has a history of violence and is a registered sex offender.<\/p>\n
The standoff began around 1 p.m. Tuesday when officers responded to a call of a bomb threat at the Chase Bank building, a four-story office building with dark-tinted glass windows all around. Police said the man had barricaded himself inside with several people.<\/p>\n
The department’s crisis negotiation team talked with the suspect by telephone and eventually two hostages were released Tuesday night, police said.<\/p>\n
Nearby buildings, including City Hall and the police headquarters that are just a block away, were evacuated and some roads were temporarily closed during the hostage situation. Bakersfield, a city of about 380,000 residents, is the seat of largely rural Kern County and is about 100 miles (160 kms) northeast of Los Angeles.<\/p>\n
A spokesperson for JPMorgan Chase said the bank branch is on the ground floor.<\/p>\n
Officers established a perimeter around the area and warned the public to stay away.<\/p>\n
“We have every single resource at our disposal out here to bring this to the safest resolution possible,” Bakersfield police Sgt. Eric Celedon said Tuesday.<\/p>\n
Jacob Davidson, a livestreamer known as Dad’s Gone Live, was a block from the bank at his family’s tattoo shop when he started getting calls about the bomb threat.<\/p>\n
“I went into the bank’s parking garage and watched the cops enter the back of the bank. This is the biggest police presence I’ve ever seen in this town,” Davidson said.<\/p>\n
His livestream captured through a window in the building a woman rocking back and forth Tuesday night before crouching below the window. Later, two hands could be seen waving.<\/p>\n
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