As investigators continue to piece together what led to a 15-hour hostage standoff at a downtown Bakersfield bank, the former mother-in-law of the man killed by FBI agents is speaking out, saying her granddaughter is being wrongly tied to his past sex-crime case.<\/p>\n
Deborah Tillman said her granddaughter\u2019s life has changed overnight when her father, Anthony Scott Searles-Harris, held 10 people hostage inside the Chase Bank building in downtown Bakersfield.<\/p>\n
\u201cNobody would have dreamt that he would go to this extreme and to put anybody else in harm,\u201d Tillman said. \u201cSurprising, it\u2019s surprising to me, it\u2019s surprising to his friends, it\u2019s surprising to his family, his sister, everybody. It\u2019s a shock.\u201d<\/p>\n
Investigators said that on June 2, Searles-Harris barricaded himself inside the Chase Bank building and claimed to have a bomb. Harris was a registered sex offender, court records show he was sentenced to 12 years in prison for having sex with underage girls.<\/p>\n
Tillman said her granddaughter is being falsely labeled as one of his victims.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey got it wrong about her being a part of the molestation charges,\u201d Tillman said. \u201cThey got it wrong that he abused her\u201d<\/p>\n
Tillman said she believes Searles-Harris\u2019 status as a registered sex offender contributed to a custody decision that left him estranged from his daughter for years.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe judge is the one who made it to where he couldn\u2019t, you know, that\u2019s what happened,\u201d Tillman said. \u201cThat\u2019s how the battle was won, and that\u2019s how come they\u2019ve been estranged for 14 years.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tillman also said her granddaughter just learned who her father was two years ago after looking him up online. Tillman adds there was no physical contact between Searles-Harris and his daughter during the day of the standoff.<\/p>\n
Tillman said Bakersfield police called her to ask if Harris\u2019 daughter could send a video message to him. The video was sent in hopes he would surrender and release the hostages.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s the first time that she\u2019s had any interaction or anything dealing with him or his family,\u201d Tillman said. \u201cShe\u2019s not involved.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tillman said her granddaughter\u2019s main focus during the standoff was ensuring no one was hurt and that everyone made it out alive.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe was willing to do anything that helped to get the hostages free,\u201d Tillman said. \u201cShe was really worried about that.\u201d<\/p>\n
All 10 hostages made it out alive, but Searles-Harris was shot and killed by FBI agents. Tillman said the family is now focused on helping her granddaughter move forward and put the standoff behind her.<\/p>\n
\u201cDespite of what\u2019s on his record and what he\u2019s guilty of, I\u2019ve never doubted his love for her,\u201d Tillman said. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As investigators continue to piece together what led to a 15-hour hostage standoff at a downtown Bakersfield bank,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":362345,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[151,153,152],"class_list":["post-362344","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\/362344","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=362344"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/362344\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/362345"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=362344"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=362344"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=362344"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}