{"id":347665,"date":"2026-06-05T06:25:10","date_gmt":"2026-06-05T06:25:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/347665\/"},"modified":"2026-06-05T06:25:10","modified_gmt":"2026-06-05T06:25:10","slug":"mental-health-expert-breaks-down-mixed-reactions-to-bakersfield-hostage-crisis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/347665\/","title":{"rendered":"Mental health expert breaks down mixed reactions to Bakersfield hostage crisis"},"content":{"rendered":"

BAKERSFIELD, Calif.(KBAK\/KBFX) \u2014 As more details continue to emerge about Tuesday’s hostage and bomb threat incident in downtown Bakersfield,<\/a> reactions online remain divided.<\/p>\n

\"FBI<\/p>\n

FBI agents respond after a man barricaded himself inside a building with hostages Tuesday, June 2, 2026, in Bakersfield, Calif. (KBAK\/KBFX)<\/p>\n

RELATED: FBI neutralizes man in bomb threat at Chase building in Bakersfield, 10 hostages rescued<\/a><\/p>\n

While many commenters have focused on the hostages and law enforcement response, others have expressed sympathy for the suspect or questioned how the situation was handled.<\/p>\n

\"Social<\/p>\n

Social media apps appear on a smartphone screen. (Photo Illustration by Chris McGrath\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n

According to Kaiser Permanente mental health therapist Rudy Hernandez, those differing reactions are not unusual.<\/p>\n

“We all have personal biases and prior beliefs,” Hernandez said.<\/p>\n

He explained that people often view major events through the lens of their own experiences, values, and belief systems.<\/p>\n

“They may have experienced something where they felt they were unjust. They may have a family member, they went through something similar,” Hernandez said. “So it’s really looking at previous experience, even our core beliefs, our own moralistic values.”<\/p>\n

Hernandez said those personal filters can lead people to interpret the same information in very different ways.<\/p>\n

“We all have our personal filters, right? We all have our own way of separating things,” he said.<\/p>\n

To illustrate the point, Hernandez compared it to two people watching the same political debate.<\/p>\n

“You and I can see a debate, for example,” Hernandez said. “We saw the same exact thing, right? But I’m gonna come with, no, my side is right, and your side is wrong.”<\/p>\n

According to Hernandez, those differences can become even more noticeable on social media.<\/p>\n

“Social media, as you know, the algorithms take over, right?” Hernandez said.<\/p>\n

He explained that once someone begins engaging with content related to a specific topic, platforms often continue showing similar information, which can reinforce existing viewpoints.<\/p>\n

\"LONDON,<\/p>\n

LONDON, ENGLAND – JANUARY 17: In this photo illustration, a teenage child looks at a screen of age-restricted content on a laptop screen on January 17, 2023 in London, England. The Bill aims to protect young and vulnerable viewers by introducing new rules for social media companies which host user-generated content, and for search engines, which will have tailored duties focussed on minimising the presentation of harmful search results. Content that platforms will need to remove includes child sexual abuse material, revenge pornography, selling illegal drugs or weapons, and terrorism. (Photo by Leon Neal\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n

“Once we just look at that event, it’s gonna skew it…next thing you know, all we’re getting is these feeds of various things about that case,” Hernandez said.<\/p>\n

The phenomenon is often referred to as confirmation bias.<\/p>\n

“It’s like a natural, unintentional human tendency,” Hernandez said. “You’re searching for and interpreting the favor, the recall information, and confirming our pre-existing beliefs. And then you ignore, dismiss, the contradicting evidence.”<\/p>\n

Hernandez described confirmation bias as a “mental filter” that helps shape how people process information and understand the world around them.<\/p>\n

He also said empathy can play a role in how people respond to controversial individuals or events.<\/p>\n

“Some people are just straightforward, empathetic, right? And their empathy takes over,” Hernandez said.<\/p>\n

That does not necessarily mean someone agrees with another person’s actions, he added.<\/p>\n

“It just means, again, they believe and have a different set of ethical values, a different set of loyalty to their own belief system,” Hernandez said.<\/p>\n

When it comes to major news events, Hernandez believes one of the biggest misconceptions is that people often form opinions before all the information is available.<\/p>\n

“We’re bombarded with various feeds,” he said. “There’s one hit on something on Instagram, and we’re like, ‘Oh my goodness, this is it.’ But there’s probably five other backstories to that.”<\/p>\n

For that reason, Hernandez encourages people to slow down and allow time for additional information to emerge.<\/p>\n

“Just allowing time and space, that’s the biggest thing,” Hernandez said. “Time and space to be able to decipher this.”<\/p>\n

He added that while opinions may differ, understanding how personal experiences, beliefs, and information sources shape those opinions can help explain why people often come away from the same event with very different conclusions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BAKERSFIELD, Calif.(KBAK\/KBFX) \u2014 As more details continue to emerge about Tuesday’s hostage and bomb threat incident in downtown…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":347666,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[151,153,152],"class_list":["post-347665","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\/347665","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=347665"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/347665\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/347666"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=347665"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=347665"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=347665"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}