By Andy Rose, CNN
(CNN) — A 15-hour standoff involving hostages and a bomb threat at a bank building in Bakersfield, California, ended Wednesday morning with the suspect dead and hostages unharmed, police said.
The suspect in the hostage situation at the multistory Chase Bank building downtown – which began around 1 p.m. Tuesday – was dead at the scene following a shooting involving FBI personnel that happened around 4:20 a.m. Wednesday, Bakersfield police said.
“All hostages were located unharmed and received medical evaluation and treatment at the scene,” police in Bakersfield, some 100 miles northwest of Los Angeles, said in a news release.
The news release did not say whether the suspect had directly threatened officers at the time of the shooting.
The end of the hostage situation at the building – which also contains offices used by the city’s school district – came hours after two hostages had been released Tuesday during authorities’ negotiations with the suspect, Bakersfield police said.
Authorities have not said how many hostages had been taken, and police did not immediately name the suspect or explain what his demands were.
Families at the scene said the hostages were taken to police headquarters to be reunited with loved ones, CNN affiliate KBAK reported.
Bakersfield police said they would have more information at a news conference at 10 a.m. local time Wednesday.
A man had barricaded himself inside the Chase Bank building in downtown Bakersfield around 1 p.m. Tuesday, prompting police to shut down the surrounding area and lock down nearby government buildings, police said. The situation involved a “confirmed bomb threat,” police said; details about the threat weren’t immediately released.
In addition to Chase Bank, the building houses a student services center for the Kern County school district. Police did not say in what part of the building the man was barricaded.
Negotiators spoke by phone to the man, police said. Members of the FBI’s Hostage Rescue Team were called to the scene, a law enforcement source familiar with the operation told CNN.
The suspect was “contained inside a room with a number of our community members and is refusing to let them out,” Bakersfield police Sgt. Eric Celedon said Tuesday afternoon.
Police tape was stretched across several intersections as the area around the building was cordoned off, and authorities said Wednesday morning law enforcement would remain there “for the next several hours as investigators process the scene.”
Fatal shootings involving FBI agents can lengthen the time it takes for law enforcement to release a crime scene. When an FBI agent fires a weapon, a shooting review team from Washington, DC, is mobilized. The inspectors work alongside other FBI investigators to determine whether discharging the weapon fell within the bureau’s deadly force policy.
Bakersfield – known as a western cultural hub of country music – is on the southern end of California’s Central Valley. It has a population of around 420,000 – roughly the same as that of Tampa, Florida – and Bakersfield’s metropolitan area is the ninth-largest in California.
CNN’s Jack Hannah, Josh Campbell and Tina Burnside contributed to this report.
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