A 41-year-old registered sex offender who took 10 school employees hostage inside a downtown Bakersfield, California, office building, and claimed he had strapped explosives to himself and some of his captives, was shot and killed by the FBI early Wednesday after a nearly 16-hour standoff.

All 10 hostages were found unharmed. Their families had spent the night wondering if they would ever see them again.

Anthony Scott Searles-Harris barricaded himself on the second floor of the Chase Bank building, a four-story structure that houses the Kern County Superintendent of Schools' office, after police responded to a bomb-threat call early Tuesday afternoon. He tied up half the hostages, the Associated Press reported, and made demands that included materials from a prior criminal case. Authorities stormed the building overnight, and FBI Special Agent in Charge Sid Patel said Searles-Harris was shot and killed around 4:20 a.m.

The suspect's criminal history tells its own story. California Department of Justice and court records show Searles-Harris was convicted in 2014 of sexual crimes involving a child under 14 years of age. He was released from prison in 2018. He remained on California's sex offender registry at the time of the standoff.

A convicted predator's grievances

Bakersfield Assistant Police Chief Jeremy Blakemore said at a Wednesday news conference that Searles-Harris had grievances tied to his earlier criminal case. Blakemore described the suspect's stated concerns this way:

"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."

Blakemore also said he was aware of videos Searles-Harris had apparently posted criticizing the sheriff's office and claiming he was innocent of his prior sex-crimes convictions. The department, Blakemore said, had no plans to investigate those claims of innocence.

Why Searles-Harris targeted the Kern County Superintendent of Schools' office remains unclear. Authorities declined to discuss motive in detail. The 10 hostages were all school employees, people who showed up for work Tuesday and found themselves captive to a man with a violent criminal record and, police said, explosive devices.

Massive federal response

The scale of the law enforcement response matched the severity of the threat. Patel said more than 100 FBI personnel assisted, including two SWAT teams, bomb technicians, and crisis negotiation teams. A hostage rescue team deployed from the FBI's East Coast headquarters.

The Bakersfield Police Department's own crisis negotiation team talked with Searles-Harris by phone during the standoff. He released two hostages Tuesday. Eight remained inside through the night.

Authorities evacuated nearby buildings, including Bakersfield City Hall and police headquarters, both located about a block away. Downtown Bakersfield, a city of roughly 380,000 residents about 100 miles northeast of Los Angeles, was effectively locked down.

By Wednesday, authorities were testing the explosive devices Searles-Harris claimed to have. Patel said they did not appear to be a concern. Officials declined to discuss exactly how the standoff ended or provide further details about the final confrontation.

A long trail of trouble

Searles-Harris's record extends well beyond his sex-crime convictions. FBI officials said he served about a year in the U.S. Army before receiving a dishonorable discharge in 2007 for going AWOL. Kern County court records show divorce proceedings involving Searles-Harris began in 2009 and reference a young child. Those records also show he filed a petition to prevent domestic violence and was later listed as an objector in a guardianship fight.

Blakemore described Searles-Harris as someone with "a history of trouble with law enforcement." That history culminated in a man convicted of crimes against a child walking into a building full of school employees and holding them at gunpoint, or worse, for the better part of a day.

Defense attorney called in to help

One detail stands out for its unusual nature. Arturo Revelo, a defense attorney who said he represented Searles-Harris in the prior case, told reporters that police asked him to help during the hostage situation Tuesday. But Revelo was never allowed to speak directly with Searles-Harris. Instead, he said, he had to make two videos telling the suspect he was present with the case documents and would assist him in any way he could.

Revelo said he was told Searles-Harris would release the hostages in exchange for those documents. He did not see that happen while he was there.

That negotiation effort, enlisting a defense attorney to record video messages for a barricaded suspect, speaks to how seriously authorities took the threat and how few options they had during the long overnight hours.

The hostages

Kern County schools superintendent John Mendiburu issued a statement praising the composure of his employees:

"What unfolded was undoubtedly a terribly frightening and unsettling experience, and the composure our employees demonstrated throughout the 16-hour ordeal was extraordinary."

Blakemore echoed that sentiment, acknowledging the agony the families endured through the night:

"Throughout the night, their families questioned whether or not they would be seen again but we are very grateful for the outcome."

Patel, the FBI's Sacramento special agent in charge, was more candid about what comes next for the survivors. He noted that one hostage was known to be diabetic and lacked her medicine during the standoff, a ticking clock within a ticking clock.

"I'm sure there'll be mental scars that they're living with, and we'll have our victim specialist to help them."

What the record shows

The facts here are not complicated. A man convicted of sexual crimes against a child under 14, released from prison in 2018, dishonorably discharged from the Army for going AWOL, with a documented history of domestic trouble and confrontations with law enforcement, walked into a building full of school employees and held them hostage for 16 hours while claiming to have explosives. His stated grievance, according to police, was dissatisfaction with how his earlier criminal case was handled.

Authorities have not said whether Searles-Harris should have been flagged or monitored more closely given his registry status and criminal background. They have not explained why a registered sex offender convicted of crimes against a child was able to access a building that houses school district offices. Those are questions Bakersfield and Kern County officials will need to answer.

The open questions, about motive, about how exactly the standoff ended, about what the explosive devices actually were, will be answered in time. What does not require further investigation is the outcome: 10 innocent people went home to their families, and the man who terrorized them did not.

When a system releases a convicted child predator and he later takes school employees hostage over grievances about his own sentencing, the system owes the public more than gratitude that it ended well.