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Subscribe to RSSThe family of the bus driver killed for refusing to hand over children is speaking out for the first time. NBC's Gabe Gutierrez reports.
The school bus driver killed this week in an Alabama hostage drama took bullets for the children on his bus just as he would have for his own kids, his son says.
When a child boarded Charles Albert Poland Jr.’s bus, “they were no longer their parents’, they were his,” Aaron Poland told NBC News. “And I know that’s the reason why my dad took those shots. It was for his children, just like he would do for me and my sister.”
Authorities say Jimmy Lee Dykes, a Vietnam veteran and survivalist, boarded Poland's bus on Tuesday and demanded two children. When Poland refused, Dykes shot him, authorities say. They say Dykes took a 5-year-old boy hostage and has been holed up in an underground bunker with him ever since.
Poland, 66, had driven a school bus for Dale County since 2009. Authorities said they found four shell casings at the scene.
"I expected them to say he had a heart attack or got in to a car wreck. Never in my wildest dreams did I think he'd get shot, and shot four times," Poland's sister, Vicki Upchurch, said Thursday.
Upchurch, who lives in Athol, Idaho, told NBC station KHQ of Spokane, Wash., that Poland family grew up in northern Idaho, where much of the family still lives. Relatives were planning to travel from Idaho to Alabama for his funeral services this weekend.
"We will get through this," Upchurch said. "My brother was very religious. He had a deep faith."
Poland joined the Army in the 1960s and moved to Alabama, where he married and had lived ever since, Upchurch said. She said he retired as a diesel mechanic in 2009 and had been driving a school bus to help support his wife until she was able to retire.
"My brother would have done anything to protect those kids," she said.
Schools Superintendent Donny Bynum said in a statement Wednesday that "Mr. Poland was well-loved by all of us here at Dale County Schools."
Hostage suspect was loner, missed court appearance
Poland's wife, Jan, remembered the man known to friends as "Chuck" as a gentle, caring man in an interview with a local newspaper, The Dothan Eagle.
Dale County Board of Education
Dale County bus driver Charles Poland, 66, was killed Tuesday.
Friends and family gathered Wednesday at the couple's home in Newton, about a 15-minute drive from Midland City, according to the paper.
"He loved them," she said of the friends and family shocked by Poland's violent death. "He loved everybody and he was loved."
Terry Roberts, a firefighter and youth pastor in Newton, told the Eagle that he had known Poland for most of his life.
Those who knew him are in "total shock," Roberts told the paper.
"The kids, everybody's just in total shock," Roberts said. "I've got a young child, so it really hits home."
The Dale County Sheriff's Department offered its condolences to Poland's family in a press release Wednesday.
"It says in the Bible the meek will inherit the Èarth," Poland's brother-in-law Melvin Skipper told the Eagle. "He was the meekest man I knew."
Alabama bunker hostage boy's family is 'holding on by a thread'
While neighbors have described Dykes, 65, as a paranoid survivalist who was always digging in his yard with a shovel, Poland's neighbor Hilburn Benton told the Eagle that the bus driver once helped him complete a major yard project and asked nothing in return.
"He told me, 'You're my friend and you're my neighbor. I'm not charging you a dime,'" Benton told the paper.
Schools in Dale County and in neighboring Ozark city were to remain closed for the rest of the week, according to a release Wednesday from the Dale County Board of Education.
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Sounds like a good Christian guy. See, see, here's the more typical Christian.
Helps his neighbor for free, on a major, time-consuming project, not something small, took bullets in defense of kids ( we assume).
Creek Dog, all I can say is "RIGHT ON BROTHER"! Well said.
WTF? Kenny free thinker...........you think too much!
My sincerest condolences to the family of the bus driver.
It's amazing how tough people are when they've got a gun in their hand. Otherwise, they are just a bunch of _______s. They need to hide behind a gun so they can have the advantage. When that guy's right to bear arms infringes upon innocent people's right to live, we've got a problem here, Houston.
I hope that killer/ kidnapper m'fer ends up like that character who hijacked a school bus in Dirty Harry.
Rest in peace, Charles Albert Poland Jr.
Death to Jimmy Lee Dykes...now!!!!
A Vietnam veteran with anti-government holdings has gone and committed a brash crime?
Death?
Do shut up. If he has ever been in his right mind since coming back from that struggle I would be surprised. I also suspect that he wants to turn the child over but is now scared of what he had done. Don't forget, he has to live with memories that only "that" war could produce.
Mr. Poland is definitely a hero and I intend to pray for his family, Nam ended almost 40 years ago, Dykes doesn't get a pass on this, I for one would pull the switch on him. If it was my dad, Dykes fate would be certain. Bleed all of it if you want, but Dykes surrendered his life, the moment he took the life of an innocent man regardless of his service. Period
Of course he surrendered his life. There is no doubt about that then or now. But watch enough of your friends killed in front of you and next to you and you may not be in the best state of mind either.
I have a question, Where are the lawyers at, they should be standing upright to collect some debts for the personnel involved. Lets see, personal injury to the child is a case here on this cituation. How are you going to prove the school was responsible for personal injury of the driver and the child would be my concern. To collect punitive damages, though, the plaintiff has to not only prove gross negligence, but also malicious intent.
Not everything requires a 4-year long court case.
Sometimes it is a matter of a + b = c
How touching.
Now might be a good time to beef up those useless Alabama state gun-control laws. I've seen old men try to chew without teeth and I have to say that it doesn't get them very far either.
Logic:
Yeah; ... Let's rewrite them so that in future bus drivers can be armed, and actually mount an effective defense of the small children in their care.
Children are stress inducers and I wouldn't want an irate bus driver with a firearm whatsoever.
Obviously it would have been better if he had been armed as a live bus driver with a dead assailant is better than a dead hero and a kidnapped child. Wake up and smell the roses people, time to provide armed security personnel for our precious assets rather than try and pass useless laws that hinder the defense of the helpless and aid the evil that is out there.
The time for tears is today... For tomorrow it will be too late.
G-d damn the federal and local legislatures for creating these killing fields called "gun free zones." Every senator and representative, as well as the president who signed this abomination into law, should be held personally liable for EVERY injury and death that occurs in these killing zones. Repeal the Gun Free School Act NOW before any more needless deaths occur. These zones are equivalent to an O.S.H.A. safe and protective workplace for violent predatory homicidal criminals. The insanity MUST end NOW!!! Repeal the "Gun Free School Zones" NOW!!!
The current, as well as historical, gun control hysteria and enactment of legislation do NOTHING to STOP the killing. These illogical laws only endanger virtuous Americans, while at the same time protecting violent predatory homicidal criminals. The MADNESS MUST STOP NOW!!!
I give thumbs up to Charles Albert Poland Jr. I only wish there were more like him. God Bless Him.
There ARE more like him. Think back over the last year or two--there's been several cases where teachers have given their lives trying to defend their students. God Bless each one of them!!
I'm not normally very religious, but when someone like Charles Poland lays down his life for the kids in his charge, there has to be a special place in Heaven for him. One can only hope!
Obviously, our children need to be protected by armed guards. If we can spend trillions protecting Afghans, Iraqis and South Koreans, why can't we spend some on protecting the kids?
As an American and a father i am proud of this brave man who gave his life to protect innocent children from evil. i consider him a soldier, i salute him and wish his family the strength to get through this time, his children should be very proud of there father! thank you sir for your sacrifice!
All I can say is I pray for all involved. for the little boy to know JESUS is with him. I pray this man stops an thinks about what is happening around him. something bad has happen to this man to hurt others an take a Little child hostage.... May GOD inter vein an stop all from getting hurt an worse... prayers with every one...
Viet Nam vets suffer more than veterans of other wars from a public perception that they were involved in a meaningless war. Although it was a war without any true merit, that fact should have spilled over upon those politicians responsible for this unnecessary war. Unfortunately, the actual participants became the victims of an uncaring public without the true respect they deserved. In passing, those who complain constantly about the government would have raised havoc if the authorities had taken this "survivalist" into custody for his and the public's protection before this tragedy had occurred. Obviously digging caves and stocking them with goods had concerned his neighbors as well it should. Such folks are clearly irrational and need help whether they want it or not.
Dead bus driver, dead vietnam vet who kidnapped a kid, scared little kid. We praise this, we admonish that. We look at one person as good and the other as bad.
Im sad the driver is dead, I'm glad the boy is safe. But I'm sad this guy who served his country, who was once a little boy himself a long time ago, lost it and did these things. It's sad that anyone gets to a point in their life where doing something like this becomes a rational idea to them.
This man is nothing short of a true American Hero !!! And I hope he is honored everywhere as such!!!!! My sincere condolences go out to his family.
I would just like to say that if a person goes to jail why as taxs payers why the get tv, gym, medical,ect. why do they get it. They should get a bed, tolit, blanket that's it . they choose what they did not us