Hostage standoff in Alabama

[Rogue 9]

AP via NPR

Standoff: Ala. Gunman Kills Bus Driver, Seizes Boy

by The Associated Press
January 30, 2013 6:46 PM

MIDLAND CITY, Ala. (AP) — A gunman holed up in a bunker with a 6-year-old hostage kept law officers at bay Wednesday in an all-night, all-day standoff that began when he killed a school bus driver and dragged the boy away, authorities said.

SWAT teams took up positions around the gunman's rural property and police negotiators tried to win the kindergartener's safe release.

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 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-year-old child. The gunman then took the boy 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 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.

Authorities gave no details on the standoff, and it was unclear if Dykes made any demands from his underground bunker, which resembled a tornado shelter.

The sheriff said in a brief statement Wednesday evening that negotiators continued talking to the suspect and "at this time we have no reason to believe that the child has been harmed."

About 50 vehicles from federal, state and local agencies were clustered at the end of a dirt road near where Dykes lived in a small travel trailer. 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 he had no details on how.

At one point, authorities lowered medicine into the bunker for the boy after his captor agreed to it, Clouse said. The lawmaker said he did not know what the medicine was for or whether it was urgently needed.

Chris Voss, a former international kidnapping negotiator for the FBI, said negotiators at the scene should remain patient and calm, resisting the urge to force a quick resolution.

"Getting what you want is not the same as getting even," said Voss, whose firm, the Black Swan Group, now consults on high-stakes negotiations. "Flooding the zone will not save lives."

Mike and Patricia Smith, who live across the street from Dykes and whose two children were on the bus when the shooting happened, said their youngsters had a run-in with him about 10 months ago.

"My bulldogs got loose and went over there," Patricia Smith said. "The children went to get them. He threatened to shoot them if they came back."

"He's very paranoid," her husband said. "He goes around in his yard at night with a flashlight and shotgun."

Patricia Smith said her children told her what happened on the bus: Two other children had just been dropped off and the Smith children were next. Dykes stepped onto the bus and grabbed the door so the driver couldn't close it. Dykes told the driver he wanted two boys, 6 to 8 years old, without saying why.

According to Smith, Dykes started down the aisle of the bus and the driver put his arm out to block him. Dykes fired four shots at Poland with a handgun, Smith said.

"He did give his life, saving children," Mike Smith said.

Patricia Smith said her daughter, a high school senior, began corralling the other children and headed for the back of the bus while Dykes and the driver were arguing. Later, Smith's son ran inside his house, telling his mother: "The crazy man across the street shot the bus driver and Mr. Poland won't wake up."

Patricia Smith ran over to the bus and saw the driver slumped over in his seat. Her daughter used another child's cellphone to call 911.

Another neighbor, Ronda Wilbur, said Dykes beat her 120-pound dog with a lead pipe for coming onto his side of the dirt road. The dog died a week later.

"He said his only regret was he didn't beat him to death all the way," Wilbur said. "If a man can kill a dog, and beat it with a lead pipe and brag about it, it's nothing until it's going to be people."

Dykes had been scheduled to appear in court Wednesday to face a charge of menacing some neighbors as they drove by his house weeks ago. Claudia Davis said he yelled and fired shots at her, her son and her baby grandson over damage Dykes claimed their pickup truck did to a makeshift speed bump in the dirt road. No one was hurt.

"Before this happened, I would see him at several places and he would just stare a hole through me," Davis said. "On Monday I saw him at a laundromat and he seen me when I was getting in my truck, and he just stared and stared and stared at me."
__

Associated Press writers Bob Johnson in Montgomery and Jay Reeves in Birmingham contributed to this report.

[CJvR]

Wonderful.
I doubt this will end well.

[Sephirius]

Well, it's still going...

From ABC News

By GIO BENITEZ and ALYSSA NEWCOMB (@alyssanewcomb)
Feb. 3, 2013

A retired Alabama truck driver is making his 5-year-old hostage "as comfortable as possible" in an underground bunker, authorities said, as they enter the sixth day of negotiations.

Jimmy Lee Dykes, 65, has allowed negotiators to send medicine for the boy, who has only been identified by his first name, Ethan.

Other comfort items, including potato chips, coloring books and toys, have been sent into the bunker for Ethan through a ventilation pipe that leads into the 6-by-8-foot subterranean hideout four feet underground.

"I want to thank him for taking care of our child, that is very important," Dale County Sheriff Wally Olson said at a news conference on Saturday.

The incident began on Tuesday when Dykes boarded a school bus and demanded two boys between 6 and 8 years old. Bus driver Charles Albert Poland Jr., 66, was shot dead when he tried to block Dykes, who then abducted 5-year-old Ethan.

"The bus driver kept saying, 'Just please get off the bus,' and [Dykes] said, 'Ah, all right, I'll get off the bus," said witness Terrica Singletary, 14. "He just tried to back up and reverse and [Dykes] pulled out the gun and he just shot him, and he just took Ethan."

Neighbors told ABCNews.com that Dykes has been known to retreat underground for up to eight days.

Cindy Steiner, who lives next door to the 5-year-old boy, Ethan, said his mother is worried and just wants her "loving little boy" home safe.

"Because Ethan being autistic, he has behavior problems, and she doesn't want him to get in one of those moods where he's uncontrollable," Steiner told ABC News. "She's scared what would happen."

While negotiations continue and it was reported that Ethan is physically unharmed, an official told The Associated Press that the boy has been crying for his parents.

While the community is praying for a peaceful resolution, Steiner said she had a message for 5-year-old Ethan.

"Hang tough, little man," she said. "We love you. We are praying for you."

ABC News' Kevin Dolak and Alexis Shaw contributed to this report.

Hopefully the fact that the hostage taker is allowing aid to be delivered is a sign this will end peacefully; but considering the actions taken to abduct the kid it's completely up in the air.

[Ahriman238]

Alright, now I'm really worried about an autistic child in a hostage situation. Still, in 6 days no one has been hurt (since the initial shooting and hostage-taking, I mean) so that's hopefully a good sign.

[Lagmonster]

The man is obviously paranoid, and quite possibly crazy. Emphasis on the latter. If so, I would hope that it would be easier to talk him down. A sane man with conviction and a method in mind to his goals, I would imagine to be an impossible person to talk down.

On a side note, as a father of a six-year-old boy, it's realllllllly hard not to put yourselves into the panicked shoes of the parents each time something like this happens. I've been getting a lesson on why 'think of the children' works so well as irrational political manipulation. When this story broke, for a second I found myself thinking, "if there had been an armed guard on the bus...wait, stop, where the hell did that come from?"

[Sea Skimmer]

Na, no guard needed, you just need an armored turnstile design borrowed from a nuclear weapon facility to replace the bus door and this could never happen, or transport the children in armored pods loaded and unloaded like cans picked up by those automated garbage trucks. Then they'd be forced to remain seated on the bus too. More safety in traffic accidents.

It looks like the plan is to just wait the guy out to complete mental exhaustion. I assume they've decided the bunker door is too strong to breach instantly in some kind of raid when he just falls asleep, as he must have slept a few times with the siege going on this long. The bunker itself is too small to use a flash bang in, so utter surprise while he as sleeping would be the only possible option for a assault. Very shitty. Its a special kind of nuts at work all and all.

[Dalton]

The standoff is over; they are about to give a press conference. No word on the condition of the boy, but there are reports of a loud boom and a gunshot from the AP.

[Dalton]

Initial reports indicate kidnapper is dead, boy is ok; correspondent reported seeing handshakes and high-fives.

EDIT: Reported by a "federal official"; AP sources indicate positive outcome

[Dominarch's Hope]

Suicide or Sniper?

[Dalton]

News conference pending.

[White Haven]

Kick ass. I'd been just eyeing this situation, waiting for it to go bad and hoping it wouldn't. Just one of those times when I'm damned glad to be wrong.

[Thanas]

Suicide or Sniper?

I heard sniping into an underground bunker is kinda hard.

[Atia]

Their seems to be a rumor or something that they actually tunneled into the bunker. Which seems kind of crazy that the kidnapper did not hear any sort of tunneling. Still it's good it is kind of a shame the kidnapper had to die he seemed a bit crazy and everything, though he did kill a man and kidnap a six year old boy. So it is not a very big shame.

[Sea Skimmer]

New conference just said police shot the guy after he was visually observed to be holding a gun and they thought he was getting ready to shoot the kid.

If the guy was constantly watching TV, which appeared to be the case, you could dig a fair bit and not be noticed. I'd wondered about digging myself, but it'd only be useful if the bunker walls were very weak and you could shoot through them readily. Might have been the case. Nothing was said about the nature of the raid so far.

[weemadando]

Reports I read w/interviews from neighbours who had been shown the bunker made it sound more like "Hole in ground with plastic lining that he put dirt back over" than "concrete pillbox fighting position".

[Venator]

Apparently some form of flashbang or similar device was used, according to Al Jazeera:

"The law enforcement source said a stun or flash grenade was detonated as part of the operation to free the boy, but further details were not immediately available."
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/americas/ ... 97900.html

No matter how it happened, I'll just echo White Haven and say that I saw this going very badly, and am glad it didn't.

[Sea Skimmer]

Reports I read w/interviews from neighbours who had been shown the bunker made it sound more like "Hole in ground with plastic lining that he put dirt back over" than "concrete pillbox fighting position".

Yeah it was hand dug, seems it took months hacking it out and had several feet of sand on top, and generally homemade, but even a couple layers of plywood for walls are enough to start causing problems with gunfire and spall in a confined space. The air vent pipe into it might have been used to channel the blast of a flashbang into the bunker, without actually dropping one inside.

[Ahriman238]

Glad the kid is safe, bit sad the killer didn't make it. Any chance on us ever finding what inspired him to do it?

[Dalton]

Glad the kid is safe, bit sad the killer didn't make it. Any chance on us ever finding what inspired him to do it?

I'm sure the details will be released as soon as police complete their investigation. Speculation at this point is useless.

[Rogue 9]

Glad the kid is safe, bit sad the killer didn't make it. Any chance on us ever finding what inspired him to do it?

He was due in court for menacing his neighbors the day he took the hostage, presumably with the goal of not going to court, which suggests crazy anti-government type.