{"id":345249,"date":"2026-06-03T19:30:08","date_gmt":"2026-06-03T19:30:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/345249\/"},"modified":"2026-06-03T19:30:08","modified_gmt":"2026-06-03T19:30:08","slug":"suspect-killed-hostages-released-after-standoff-in-bakersfield","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/345249\/","title":{"rendered":"Suspect killed, hostages released after standoff in Bakersfield"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The hostage standoff in Bakersfield came to an end early Wednesday morning with a suspect dead and all hostages free. <\/p>\n<p>Police responded to a building at Chester Ave. and 17th St. around 1 p.m. Tuesday for a reported bomb threat. Officers then learned a man had barricaded himself inside the second floor of the building with multiple hostages.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe suspect advised he had explosives attached to his person, which our personnel could see as well,\u201d Bakersfield PD Assistant Chief Jeremy Blakemore told reporters at a press conference. He also said there were additional explosives attached to the hostages.<\/p>\n<p>The hostages, according to Blakemore, were employees of the Kern County Superintendent of Schools. <\/p>\n<p>Several nearby buildings were evacuated as a precaution.<\/p>\n<p>During the standoff, one hostage was released just before 4 p.m., and two more were released at 8:24 p.m. <\/p>\n<p>The FBI responded to the area just after 9 p.m. The standoff came to an end at 4:20 a.m. after the suspect, identified as 41-year-old Anthony Scott Searles-Harris, was killed by the FBI. <\/p>\n<p>The 10 hostages were released unharmed and received medical attention at the scene, officers said. <\/p>\n<p>Follow KNX News 1070 AM<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/KNXnews\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">Twitter<\/a> |<a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/knxnews\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" target=\"_blank\"> Facebook<\/a> |<a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/knxnews\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" target=\"_blank\"> Instagram<\/a> |<a href=\"https:\/\/www.tiktok.com\/@knxnews\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" target=\"_blank\"> TikTok<\/a><\/p>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><script async src=\"\/\/www.instagram.com\/embed.js\"><\/script><script async src=\"\/\/www.tiktok.com\/embed.js\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The hostage standoff in Bakersfield came to an end early Wednesday morning with a suspect dead and all&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":345250,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[151,153,152],"class_list":["post-345249","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-bakersfield","tag-bakersfield","tag-bakersfield-headlines","tag-bakersfield-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/345249","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=345249"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/345249\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/345250"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=345249"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=345249"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=345249"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}