The warning came as a one-liner: “It’s a bad day to be in the bank.” That’s how Freddy Arredondo says a 15-hour hostage crisis began Tuesday at a Chase Bank building in downtown Bakersfield, California, CNN reports. Police say the man who approached him, 41-year-old Anthony Scott Searles-Harris, then revealed what appeared to be a bomb vest and claimed to have a “dead man’s switch,” ordering people to the floor. Some customers and employees, including Arredondo, managed to flee and called 911.
Upstairs, authorities, say Searles-Harris barricaded himself on the second floor, which houses school district offices, taking 10 hostages and tying up five of them while wiring apparent explosives to himself and some captives. He released two hostages but negotiations stretched through the night as Searles-Harris—described by officials as a dishonorably discharged Army veteran, convicted sex offender, and previously violent offender—demanded FBI involvement and access to case files related to his past convictions.
- “He had concerns related to how his previous case had been handled and what the aftermath of that was, the sentencing, and those kinds of things,” Bakersfield Assistant Police Chief Jeremy Blakemore says. Records show that Searles-Harris was convicted of sexual crimes related to a child under 14 in 2014, the AP reports. He was released from prison in 2014. Authorities said Searles-Harris also had a history of violent offenses involving weapons.
During the standoff concern sharpened over a diabetic hostage whose phone battery died after relaying messages; medicine was sent in. Around 4:30am Wednesday, after the FBI’s hostage rescue team moved in citing Searles-Harris’ “erratic behavior” and health concerns for the diabetic hostage, agents fatally shot him and recovered all remaining hostages. Multiple improvised explosive devices were found; their viability and his motive remain under investigation. Arredondo tells CNN he was happy to be home with his family on Tuesday but he will carry the experience for life. “I can’t stop seeing that guy’s face, the way he was talking, his cold eyes,” he says. “He almost looked dead but so enthusiastic, he was just so amped at the same time.”
