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Boy, 5, Is Safe After Alabama Hostage Standoff Standoff in Alabama Ends in Boy’s Rescue and Kidnapper’s Death
(about 1 hour later)
MIDLAND CITY, Ala. — An armed man who had been holding a 5-year-old boy hostage in an underground bunker is dead and the boy has been released unharmed, ending a six-day standoff, law enforcement authorities said on Monday. MIDLAND CITY, Ala. — A six-day standoff between an angry and violent survivalist who held a 5-year-old boy hostage in an underground bunker and a legion of local, state and federal law enforcement officials ended on Monday with the death of the kidnapper and the freeing of the boy.
Stephen E. Richardson, a special agent with the F.B.I., said that the child, identified only as Ethan, was rescued here at about 3:12 p.m. The authorities said that Jimmy Lee Dykes, 65, a Vietnam veteran with a deep distrust of the government, fatally shot a school bus driver last Tuesday before grabbing the boy and taking him to the bunker, which he built in his yard. Stephen E. Richardson, a special agent with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, told reporters that the boy, named Ethan, was rescued at 3:12 p.m. and that he “appeared physically unharmed and is being treated at a local hospital.” Mr. Richardson added, “The subject is deceased.”
For days, law enforcement officers tried to negotiate a peaceful end to the standoff, but refused to discuss details of negotiations, except to suggest that the boy, who they said has a form of autism, was safe. The subject was 65-year-old Jimmy Lee Dykes, who boarded a school bus last Tuesday afternoon, killing the driver and taking the boy with him into a bunker he had installed in his backyard.
“Within the past 24 hours, negotiations deteriorated and Mr. Dykes was observed holding a gun,” Mr. Richardson said. “At this point, F.B.I. agents, fearing the child was in imminent danger, entered the bunker and rescued the child.” Neighbors speculated that Mr. Dykes had kidnapped the boy as part of a scheme to air his thoughts and grievances on a larger platform, and at a news conference earlier in the day on Tuesday, Sheriff Wally Olson of Dale County acknowledged that to be a major motive.
It was not clear how Mr. Dykes was killed, nor was it immediately clear how the F.B.I. monitored Mr. Dykes’s activities in the bunker. The authorities declined to answer questions about the details of the rescue, although earlier in the weeklong siege they said they had talked to him through a length of PVC pipe. “Based on our discussions he feels like he has a story that is important to him, although it’s very complex,” said the sheriff, who appeared wearier than in recent days.
After the rescue, Mr. Richardson said Ethan, who appeared unharmed, was taken to a local hospital. Officials had been in constant communication with Mr. Dykes, speaking with him on a mobile phone and passing toys, food and coloring books into the bunker through a plastic pipe that Mr. Dykes had put in so he could hear trespassers on his property. Officials had also been able to pass medication to Ethan, who was described as having of Asperger’s syndrome and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.
People near the scene described hearing two loud booms like explosions in midafternoon. In comments to reporters after the rescue, Mr. Richardson suggested that talks had recently broken down.
Residents said they were relieved the standoff was at an end. “Within the past 24 hours, negotiations deteriorated and Mr. Dykes was observed holding a gun,” he said. “At this point, F.B.I. agents, fearing the child was in imminent danger, entered the bunker and rescued the child.”
“This is exactly what we prayed for,” said Michael Senn, a church pastor. “We’re just a small community in the Bible Belt. What got us through this tragedy was the community pulling together and praying together.” For some time, officials had been able to monitor the movements within the bunker, said two people who had been briefed on the operation. They had also built a mock-up of the bunker nearby, where authorities could test various options while devising a rescue plan.

Robbie Brown reported from Midland City, and Michael Schwirtz from New York.

On Monday afternoon, sensing that Mr. Dykes was becoming rattled and that the threat to the boy was growing more severe, the authorities dropped two devices into the bunker that created loud explosions, heard by people across the highway. The explosions disoriented Mr. Dykes, and immediately afterward two or three men moved into the bunker and retrieved the child.
This article has been revised to reflect the following correction: It is unclear whether Mr. Dykes was killed or he killed himself.
“I am thankful that the child who was abducted is now safe,” Gov. Robert Bentley of Alabama said in a statement. “We will all continue to pray for the little boy and his family as they recover from the trauma of the last several days.”
The standoff began last Tuesday afternoon when Mr. Dykes approached a bus driven by Charles Albert Poland Jr., saying he wanted to give him some broccoli he had grown in his garden. The two knew each other; Mr. Poland had given Mr. Dykes a gift of eggs and homemade jam several days earlier. Once on the bus, Mr. Dykes handed Mr. Poland a note and demanded two children between the ages of 6 and 8.
Mr. Poland opened the emergency door in the back of the bus and as the children escaped he blocked Mr. Dykes’ way; Mr. Dykes shot him four times, killing him. Mr. Dykes then managed to take Ethan and set off the six-day siege of his bunker.
“He was a very bad man, a terrible man,” said Terrica Singletary, 14, who was on the bus that day and was among the 20 children who managed to flee.
On Sunday, Mr. Poland was given a hero’s funeral, with hundreds coming to a civic center up the road to honor a small-town bus driver whom many of the attendees had never met.
The little community also began to learn about Mr. Dykes, who had moved onto a patch of property on the grassy hill about two years ago.
Neighbors of Mr. Dykes generally kept their distance, which he made easy. He frequently made violent threats to anyone who wandered onto his property, once even beating a neighbors’ dog to death with a lead pipe, and would sometimes sit watching and holding a rifle when young children played in a nearby yard. Late into the night he would dig in the backyard of his travel trailer, or patrol his property with a flashlight and a long gun.
When he did enter into conversations, they frequently involved conspiracies about the federal, state and local government, and the very forces he had brought down on himself when he kidnapped Ethan.
“What he’s done the last seven days has been his own justification,” said Jason Brogden, the lawyer for Midland City. “By virtue of his own actions, his paranoia came to fruition.”
Throughout the standoff, there was talk of little else in southeastern Alabama, a mostly rural region called the Wiregrass. Over lunch at restaurants and even at a Super Bowl party in nearby Ozark, conversations would not roam far before returning to whether that little boy had gotten out yet and what that crazy man must be thinking.
Marquees in front of gas stations urged people to pray for Ethan and the family of Mr. Poland, the 66-year-old bus driver, and every night at a gazebo on the lawn of City Hall, people did just that, holding candles and concluding with a chorus of “Amazing Grace.”
“This is exactly what we prayed for,” said Pastor Michael Senn, a local minister, whose church owns a building where many of the schoolchildren fled after escaping from the bus. “We’re just a small community in the Bible Belt. What got us through this tragedy was the community pulling together and praying together.”

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: February 4, 2013Correction: February 4, 2013

An earlier version of the photo caption misspelled the surname of the armed man who held the boy hostage. He is Jimmy Lee Dykes, not Jimmy Lee Sykes.

An earlier version of the photo caption misspelled the surname of the armed man who held the boy hostage. He is Jimmy Lee Dykes, not Jimmy Lee Sykes.