Standoff: Alabama gunman kills bus driver, seizes boy

MIDLAND CITY, Ala.—Police hostage negotiators were locked in a standoff Wednesday with a gunman authorities say intercepted a school bus, killed the driver, snatched a 6-year-old boy and retreated with the kindergartener into a bunker at his home.

The gunman, identified by neighbors as Jimmy Lee Dykes, a 65-year-old retired truck driver, was known around the neighborhood as a menacing figure who once beat a dog to death with a lead pipe, threatened to shoot children for setting foot on his property and patrolled his yard at night with a flashlight and a shotgun.

He had been scheduled to appear in court Wednesday morning to answer charges he shot at his neighbors in a dispute last month over a speed bump.

The standoff along a red dirt road began on Tuesday afternoon, after a gunman boarded a stopped school bus filled with children in the small town of Midland City, population 2,300. Sheriff Wally Olsen said the man shot the bus driver when he refused to hand over a 6-yearold child. The gunman then took the kindergartener away.

“As far as we know there is no relation at all. He just wanted a child for a hostage situation,” said Michael Senn, a church pastor who helped comfort the traumatized children after the attack.

The bus driver, Charles Albert Poland Jr., 66, was hailed by locals as a hero who gave his life to protect 21 students.

Dykes was believed to be holed up with the boy at his rural property in an underground bunker of the sort used to take shelter from a tornado. Authorities gave no details on the standoff as it dragged on through the night and into the afternoon Wednesday, and it was unclear if Dykes had made any demands.

Police SWAT teams took up positions around the property, where Dykes lived in a small travel trailer, and about 50 vehicles from federal, state and local agencies were clustered at the end of a dirt road nearby. Nearby homes were evacuated after authorities found what was believed to be a bomb on his property.

State Rep. Steve Clouse, who met with authorities and visited the boy’s family, said the bunker had food and electricity, and the youngster was watching TV. He said law enforcement authorities were communicating with the gunman but had no details.