The man who held 10 hostages overnight in a California Chase Bank building and threatened to detonate explosives — before he was shot dead by FBI agents — has been identified as a registered sex offender with a violent history.
Authorities in Bakersfield, about 110 miles north of Los Angeles, say 41-year-old Anthony Scott Searles-Harris took 10 people hostage on the second floor of a Chase Bank building around 1 p.m. Tuesday while claiming to have explosives strapped to his body.
The hostages worked for a local school district, which has an office on the second floor. Five of the hostages were tied up, but none of the 10 were injured. Searles-Harris also attached explosives to some of the hostages, officials said.
Searles-Harris had a history of violence and is a registered sex offender. He served in the U.S. Army from 2006 to 2007 but was dishonorably discharged after going AWOL, said Sid Patel, of the FBI’s Sacramento field office.
Patel noted that Searles-Harris was no stranger to law enforcement. In addition to his violent history, in 2014, he was charged with sex acts with a child under 14.
The suspect was shot and killed just after 4 a.m.
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