A man who was holding hostages inside a California office building for about 12 hours was shot and killed by the FBI early Wednesday, police said. The hostages were found unharmed inside the downtown Bakersfield building that houses a bank and a school district office, the Bakersfield Police Department said in a statement. The suspect was killed in “an officer-involved shooting” involving FBI personnel, the department said. The standoff began Tuesday afternoon when officers responded to a call of a bomb threat at the Chase
Bank building, a four-story office building with dark-tinted glass windows all around. Police said the man had barricaded himself inside with several people. The department’s crisis negotiation team talked with the suspect by telephone and eventually two hostages were released Tuesday night, police said. Nearby buildings, including City Hall and the police headquarters that are just a block away, were evacuated and some roads were temporarily closed during the hostage situation. Bakersfield, a city of about 380,000 residents, is the seat of largely rural Kern
County and is about 100 miles (160 kms) northeast of Los Angeles. A spokesperson for JPMorgan Chase said the bank branch is on the ground floor. Officers established a perimeter around the area and warned the public to stay away. “We have every single resource at our disposal out here to bring this to the safest resolution possible,” Bakersfield police Sgt. Eric Celedon said Tuesday. Jacob Davidson, a livestreamer known as Dad’s Gone Live, was a block from the bank at his family’s tattoo shop
when he started getting calls about the bomb threat. “I went into the bank’s parking garage and watched the cops enter the back of the bank. This is the biggest police presence I’ve ever seen in this town,” Davidson said. His livestream captured through a window in the building a woman rocking back and forth Tuesday night before crouching below the window. Later, two hands could be seen waving.
FBI, hostage standoff, Bakersfield, Chase Bank, bomb threat, officer-involved shooting, crisis negotiation
So they evacuated City Hall and everything just for a bomb threat??
I don’t get it, if the hostages were unharmed then why did it take 12 hours? Seems like they coulda just had him talked down way faster. Also the bank has a school district office in the same building? That feels wild.
Wait, wasn’t this livestreamer Dad’s Gone Live somehow involved? Like I keep seeing clips and I’m like why is he right there if he’s “just a block away.” That rocking/crouching thing had me thinking something worse was happening. Idk, FBI always takes forever then BAM.
The headline says FBI shoots man after 12-hour hostage standoff but it doesn’t say what the man actually did besides barricading. “Officer-involved shooting” is such a cop way to phrase it. If he had hostages and they were fine, that just makes it seem like nobody wanted to end it until they had an excuse to shoot him. And Bakersfield cops said they had resources, but still it ends with a gun. Just feels off to me.