\n \u201cIt\u2019s a bad day to be in the bank,\u201d the man said.\n <\/p>\n
\n Thinking the man was making small talk, Arredondo responded: \u201cNo, it\u2019s not that bad, it\u2019s not that packed.\u201d\n <\/p>\n
\n But the man repeated himself and added, \u201cToday\u2019s your last day on Earth, you guys are going to die today,\u201d Arredondo recalled.\n <\/p>\n
\n Arredondo and the greeter froze.\n <\/p>\n
\n The man demanded everyone\u2019s attention. Then, he pulled out a trigger from under his shirt connected to wires attached to a vest, Arredondo said.\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cI have a bomb,\u201d Arredondo recalls the man saying. \u201cI need you guys to all get on the floor.\u201d\n <\/p>\n
\n The man, 41-year-old Anthony Scott Searles-Harris, who authorities say is a dishonorably discharged Army veteran and convicted sex offender, went on to take 10 hostages on the second floor of the building in downtown Bakersfield, some 100 miles north of Los Angeles, according to the Bakersfield Police Department.\n <\/p>\n
\n A roughly 15-hour standoff ensued \u2013 with people tied up and desperate communication coming in from a hostage\u2019s dying phone \u2013 before he was killed in a confrontation with the FBI Wednesday morning, authorities said.\n <\/p>\n
\n The hostages were eventually safely recovered, including two who were released on Tuesday during authorities\u2019 negotiations with Searles-Harris, law enforcement officials said.\n <\/p>\n
![\"Bakersfield](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/1781511896_649_ap26154658182676.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
Bank customers flee and call 911<\/p>\n
\n What happened after Searles-Harris announced he had a bomb was hazy for Arredondo, who said it felt like he \u201cblacked out\u201d as the man continued to make demands.\n <\/p>\n
\n He kept screaming, \u201cGet on the floor now, get on the floor now,\u201d Arredondo said.\n <\/p>\n
\n Arredondo refused, staring at the man with tears welling up in his eyes. \u201cI was like \u2018Dude, I have a family, I can\u2019t,\u2019\u201d he told CNN Wednesday.\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cI kept thinking to myself, \u2018listen Freddy, listen to him\u2019, but at the same time my body was like, \u2018no,\u2019\u201d Arredondo said.\n <\/p>\n
\n The man told the hostages he had \u201ca dead man\u2019s switch\u201d \u2013 a device that would kill them all if he released it, Arredondo said.\n <\/p>\n
\n Every time the man looked away, Arredondo and others at the bank would take a step back, and he\u2019d scream at them to \u201cstop moving.\u201d\n <\/p>\n
\n When the man turned his attention to another group, Arredondo saw an opening: he and other patrons and employees ran out of the building.\n <\/p>\n
\n Arredondo jumped to the side, expecting the building to blow up, then called 9-1-1. As he was on the phone, he saw a police officer and yelled, \u201cThere\u2019s a bomb in there.\u201d\n <\/p>\n
\n Arredondo\u2019s call was one in a stream of calls authorities had started receiving around 1 p.m. about a man with a bomb at the Chase Bank building.\n <\/p>\n
\n Inside the building, a terrifying hourslong ordeal was just beginning for those who couldn\u2019t get out.\n <\/p>\n
\n Searles-Harris had barricaded himself on the building\u2019s second floor, which houses the offices of the Kern County school superintendent\u2019s administration.\n <\/p>\n
\n He tied up five hostages while five others hid and never encountered Searles-Harris, the FBI said. He had apparent explosives attached to himself and to some of the hostages.\n <\/p>\n
\n The FBI was called in around 1:30 p.m. and SWAT teams, crisis negotiators and bomb techs descended on the scene as authorities evacuated surrounding buildings and began negotiating with Searles-Harris on the phone.\n <\/p>\n
![\"FBI](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/1781511896_177_ap26154188830083.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
\n During negotiations, Searles-Harris \u2013 who records show was convicted in 2014 of two sex offenses involving a child \u2013 expressed concerns about how the court case was handled, Bakersfield Assistant Police Chief Jeremy Blakemore said during a news conference Wednesday.\n <\/p>\n
\n Over the past two months, Searles-Harris had become increasingly standoffish and withdrawn, his neighbor Jimmy Smith told CNN Wednesday.\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cHe had asked for early on that notoriety of having FBI involved as well, and FBI negotiators,\u201d Sid Patel, special agent in charge of the FBI Sacramento field office, said at the news conference.\n <\/p>\n
\n He had a \u201ccriminal history of using weapons to commit violent offenses,\u201d Patel said.\n <\/p>\n
\n The man wanted to see materials related to his case, which authorities provided in exchange for the release of the hostages. Finally, around 4 p.m. Tuesday, Searles-Harris released one of the hostages. About four hours later, he released a second hostage.\n <\/p>\n
\n Negotiations eventually stalled, and Searles-Harris refused to release more hostages, Blakemore said. As the standoff stretched into the night and early morning, hostages\u2019 families waited to hear their loved ones were safe.\n <\/p>\n
\n Authorities became increasingly concerned about one hostage\u2019s health issues. They were able to get medicine to the diabetic hostage, who had been communicating with them until her phone died.\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cWe knew that this is a loss of life situation for that particular hostage that was taken if we didn\u2019t act sooner than later,\u201d Patel said.\n <\/p>\n
\n At 2 a.m. Wednesday, the elite FBI hostage rescue team from Quantico took over the scene.\n <\/p>\n
\n Searles-Harris was killed at about 4:30 a.m. Wednesday after the FBI team entered the building, prompted by his \u201cerratic behavior\u201d and concerns about the hostage\u2019s health, Patel said.\n <\/p>\n
\n Authorities found multiple improvised explosive devices at the scene and were doing further testing on them Wednesday. A motive for the incident is under investigation, Blakemore said.\n <\/p>\n
\n All the hostages were reunited with their families Wednesday, Blakemore said.\n <\/p>\n
\n Arredondo was happy to be home with his wife and two daughters Tuesday, but said he couldn\u2019t sleep that night, different scenarios playing out in his mind.\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cI can\u2019t stop seeing that guy\u2019s face, the way he was talking, his cold eyes. He almost looked dead but so enthusiastic, he was just so amped at the same time,\u201d Arredondo said.\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cIt\u2019s just one of those things we have to carry for life.\u201d\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Summary A witness who escaped a California bank before a hostage situation described the suspect displaying a trigger…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":346376,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[151,153,152],"class_list":["post-361160","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\/361160","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=361160"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/361160\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/346376"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=361160"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=361160"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=361160"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}