E-mail updates
Follow on Twitter
Subscribe to RSSThe family of the Alabama bus driver killed for refusing to hand children over to a gunman is speaking out for the first time. NBC's Gabe Gutierrez reports.
An Alabama boy spent his fourth day of captivity in an underground bunker Friday with a survivalist who allegedly killed a school bus driver, but the 5-year-old has received medicine he needs, plus crayons and coloring books.
Hostage negotiators have been talking to the boy's captor through a lengthy PVC pipe, but there was no sign of progress. Police told Alabama media Thursday that the man has been known to stay in the bunker as long as eight days.
The boy, a 5-year-old named Ethan known to his mother as "Love Bug," was apparently unharmed, authorities said Thursday.
His family, which has not spoken publicly since the abduction, was "holding on by a thread," a state representative told the TODAY show. "We are all just hoping this can come to a safe end," Rep. Steve Clouse said.
Jimmy Lee Dykes, 65, a Vietnam veteran described by authorities as a loner with anti-government leanings -- and by neighbors as a paranoid menace -- is suspected of taking the boy after storming a school bus Tuesday afternoon. Bus driver Charles Albert Poland Jr., 66, was shot and killed while trying to stop the abduction.
Strangely, the two men had a brief encounter just a day before the siege, a neighbor said.
Kelly Miller, who lives next door to Dykes, told NBC affiliate WSFA that Dykes boarded Poland’s bus Monday and spoke with him. She did not know what was said.
Then on Tuesday morning, before the abduction, Poland gave Dykes a gift of eggs and marmalade to thank him for clearing off the driveway where the bus had to turn around, according to Miller.
Miller, whose sons Jessie and Jackson were able to leave the bus before the shooting, told the station that Dykes called her father to the property fence shortly afterward and gave him Poland’s gifts, saying: "Here. I don't want this."
Hours later, Miller heard shots and screams.
"Within seconds of me grasping what was going on, I knew it was Jim," she told WSFA.
A source close to the investigation said the bunker, which is on Dykes' property and was described by a neighbor as 4 feet long, 6 feet wide and 8 feet deep, was equipped with power, food, television and plenty of supplies. The source said negotiators had gotten medicine, crayons and coloring books to the boy.
Late Thursday, Dale County Sheriff Wally Olson said negotiations through the pipe were continuing.
Clouse told reporters that the boy suffered from Asperger's syndrome and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder but had been able to get his medicine while held captive.
People in the small Alabama town of Midland City, not far from the Florida line, expressed hope that prayer might help. For the negotiators it is a matter of waiting, said Clint Van Zandt, a former chief hostage negotiator for the FBI.
"He doesn't want to hurt the child. He didn't take the child to hurt him," said Van Zandt, an analyst for MSNBC. "The child is simply the means to keep law enforcement from crashing into his bunker right now."
He added: "Time is on the side of the negotiator."
It could still be a long wait. James Arrington, police chief of the nearby town of Pinckard, told The Birmingham News that Dykes has been known to stay in his bunker as long as eight days.
The source told NBC News that the man believed to be Dykes walked onto the bus on Tuesday with a note, demanding that two children be handed over to him. The bus driver refused and was shot and killed.
Clouse said the kidnapping appeared to be random.
Neighbors in Midland City have said they saw Dykes tirelessly digging and working on the bunker. One man said it was protected by several feet of sand on top.
Poland has been hailed as a hero. The county school system said 21 children made it off the bus alive.
The driver's son, Aaron Poland, told NBC News that his father took bullets for the children on his bus as he would have for his own children.
"Every time a child got on my dad's bus, they were no longer their parents', they were his," he said.
Poland's sister, Vicki Upchurch, told NBC station KHQ in Spokane, Wash., that the driver "would have done anything to protect those kids."
Poland and his family grew up in northern Idaho, where much of the family still lives, Upchurch said.
Relatives were planning to travel from Idaho to Alabama for Poland's funeral services this weekend.
"We will get through this," Upchurch said. "My brother was very religious. He had a deep faith."
M. Alex Johnson, Ian Johnston, Matthew DeLuca, Gabe Gutierrez, Isolde Raftery and Alastair Jamieson of NBC News contributed to this report.
RELATED: Son says bus driver in Alabama hostage crisis gave life for 'his children'
Leave a Comment:
We have seen some kids survive years as a hostage - like JC Duggard. Not many, but slow, and hope that he will see that can survive nicely in prison and do much better than in an underground hole. He is in jail in his hole. Let the child go and move on. Many inmates enjoy prison.
I want to know what medication this man is on and was it for mental problems or was the mental problems a side effect?
Thoughts and prayers with this young boy and his family first and foremost. Here we have a perfect example of the gun not being the problem, its the whackjob, mentally ill human thats the problem. If I decided to drive in a completely intoxicated state and kill someone in a drunk driving accident, would you blame me for what transpired or would you blame the car? Guns and cars dont kill people, people who shouldnt have guns or be behind the wheel are the root source of the problem. Want to solve a problem, get to the root of the problem or youre just applying a bandaid. Think about it.
What a novel idea Jamie Wentworth. Why can't the lawmakers figure that out?
And whether you believe in God or not, let's all keep Ethan in our prayers and hopefully today he will be safe and sound with his family.
Jamie, I don't know why nobody reads, but that is exactly what I've been trying to get through people's skulls since my first post on this thread. Keep guns away from psycopaths. Go back and read some of the older posts. One idiot said it was wrong to restrict mentally ill people from owning a gun.
We need to send a message to all the gun nuts out there. Just blow the bunker up and write the kid off as an aceptable loss.The military do'es it all the time with our young men and women serveing overseas,So why not here?
This is not a warzone. Maybe we can put your kids/loved one in there instead and you can volunteer their life instead of this boy. And he is not a gun nut. He is likely a mentally unstable man.
That is insane.
The sick and weak are most vulnerable to cracking under the strain of living during the Great Recession. During the Great Depression many people starved committed suicide and even attacked innocent starving people. Nothing like poverty and a corrupt government to push these vulnerable people to the brink. The Great Depression happened after the formation of the Federal Reserve which is run by a group of private bankers. Who said give me the power to print money and I will own the government?
The Great Depression was caused by deregulation of the investment banks which allowed them to make risky investments using depositors' money instead of risking their own cash. Also Wall Street allowing investors to buy on "margin", only needing 10% of face value to make a purchase, contributed greatly in the collapse. I know this is off topic, but just had to correct an erroneous post.
You are correct about the deregulation and wall street contibuting to creating the Great Depression. But there is strong evidence that the Federal Reserve has also played a part in it. Dig a little deeper.
i hope this boys prayers get answered, god is not , love is not, with this vn vet, i have a brother , vn vet, same age, just like this guy, thinks acts, fox news his religion, i am lucky now, he wrote me off, after telling me , worthless, etc etc becuse i voted for obama, we grew up in chicago, loves guns, lives like this guy compound, i am relieved actually not putting up with his hatred talk, weird ways, i am glad he won"t show up to visit, i also have a neighbor here, he hates obama, i live alone, do not engage in their hate remarks, just polite, and avoid, them, as much as possible, he runs around in the camo look, see him alot, when he thinks i don:t, they don"t work, very much, live off the system, bad mouthing govt all the way , i worked for 30 years, oh, pretty sure, the got illegal stuff , while i was on phone, heard someone actually on line, like old day party lines, told the tel co, they said nothing they could do, well i don"t talk on it any more, just get message , i pay alot not to use it, being bullied, from these types happen every day, to alot of us, he gives me the creeps, i am doing what i can , got a security system, i am retired, one day his wife told me i should take money out of bank, becuase of the govt, i said, my money was alot safer, i keep no money at home, sorry.
Get that boy out of there, and then bury that Bastard alive in his own hole.
The Progresso soup people have a better system.
the military need to do visits , mental checks, civillians are being bullied , by so many of these big mouths who feel they are the only ones that are smart, and every one with a different view, get hammered with hate rhetoric, these guys need to be taken to military living areas, where they can play out their sickness, away from civillian life style, most hate barking dogs, they feel it drowns them out, military needs to step up, these people do not like rules.
I'm very sorry about your situation, it sounds terrible. However, for you to generalize and assume that everyone of a certain type is like those who are harrassing you is no different from those you condemn who badmouth all who are different from them. Exactly WHO should the military visit, do mental checks on, and all of that? WHO should be taken to military areas, who hates barking dogs? It sounds like you are feeling very oppressed and perhaps for good reason, but it also sounds like you are describing those you feel are oppressing you rather than suggesting a policy that can be enforced nationwide. You don't have to let the opposing actions and views of others and what they say dominate how you feel-you can take control of your own life. Just be certain you do so in a law abiding manner.
mia, perhaps on the surface that may sound reasonable. But you are willing to give the government that power? How long do you think it will be before they come grab any political opponent and declare them enemies of the state? Who determines which view is the "right" view? Your suggestion is a slippery slope to a horrid nation completely lacking anything its founders wanted. If we are to support freedom of speech, the new are to also support those who would use it to spew vile speech. Until he took a boy hostage, he broke no law. Of course, now that he has, we need to deal with him.
What would be real nice is if our government spent some time and treasure to revamp our mental health system so men like this can be identified and treated before they do things like this.
I can tell you they care NOTHING for mentally disabled. I know a Afghanistan vet (USMC) whose convoy was hit by a IED. He spent an hour with blown out eardrums and pretty substantial wounds picking up pieces of his buddy off the road. He got back to the states and for more than 7 months has not been given any treatment for PTSD because the VA cannot determine if he has it. So with a government who takes mental trauma that seriously, why are we not surprised that we have seriously mentally ill individuals out on the streets?
Agreed, Gouranga. It is really tragic that more has not been done for returning vets of ALL wars with PTSD (of course, they used to call it "shell shock" and stuff like that.) Unfortunately, the science of psychology is not as exact as many would like for it to be and it can be hard to test for things like PTSD. There is also a perception among some that a number of people are gaming the system for benefits with fake claims of PTSD-for example, people claiming PTSD who were never in combat and the like. I have family with mental health issues and have kept up with a lot of the debates that are raging in the mental health field; and, unfortunately, few mental health issues are cut and dried. There always seem to be people who take advantage of every bad situation, but at the same time one person could experience PTSD from an incident that would not traumatize another.
If all that is not bad enough, there are disagreements about how best to treat people who have experienced recent trauma. I recently read somewhere that supposedly research showed that, percentagewise, first responders who were given crisis counseling after trauma did WORSE than those who received no intervention. I haven't seen the research itself to know how it was done or how valid it was. However, in my opinion-and it's only my opinion, but it's based on having experienced personal trauma and doing poorly after having no intervention-a finding like this could be explained by first responders not doing well if crisis counseling is FORCED on them if they are not ready for it or if they choose not to accept it. Again, based on my own personal experience of trauma, I believe that a person probably does need some intervention after severe trauma like many military vets have experienced. Of course, I seriously doubt a recent study like that has anything to do with the care military vets have been receiving-I think it's more due to neglect and lack of manpower and funds (a situation that does not appear likely to improve in the near future, unfortunately.) However, if studies like that continue, they could affect mental health treatment in general in the future. At any rate, there are characteristics that are spelled out in the DSM-IV and I'm sure also in the DSM-V that help to diagnose PTSD-if the government has the will to do it and to treat those who are affected by it (and the money.)
why don't L.E.O. pump sleeping gas down the pipe , knock the man out and then rescue the boy ?
Being a war vet and having gone to all the trouble of making this bunker, I think they are considering the possibility he might have a gas mask or something. Pumping gas down the pipe might only make him angry and with the boy down there, that's not a risk I think they are willing to take.
I believe the best approach for Law Enforcement is to BACK OFF, let the nut believe he is safe, so he can come out, then that's when they grab his sorry butt! They must keep a Sniper, and a few more around at a distance, but certainly where they have EYES on every avenue, he can escape or feel he's safe enough to come out.
They need to start THINKING out of the box, and stop wasting so much of everyone's valuable time! It's time to do this thing in SHIFTS!
WHERE IS THIS ADVANCED TECHNOLOGY WE'RE SUP POST TO HAVE?????
I read a suggestion about dropping some form of "knock out gas" into the PVC pipe. That same thought crossed my mind... but I think possibly negotiators have thought of that too & the maybe the guy is prepared with a gas mask -- for all we know he could be sitting there with one on all the time... in anticipation. Who's to say if they did drop some knock out gas down the pipe that this guy would just turn around & shoot the little boy.... the guy may be mentally ill but he seems to have enough "sanity" to know he's "in control" of this situation....
I hope he releases the boy soon. That poor kid has nothing to do with it, and his family must be going crazy. I feel really bad for the bus driver too, sounds like he was a nice guy. He didn't have to give Dykes a gift, he was just being a genuinely decent person. Thoughts go to his family. Maybe they get some small sense of peace knowing he died trying to protect the kids on his bus.
Thank you for your service loser. Let go of the child and eat your gun homeo
This guy supports the GOP and the NRA no doubt. And with the weak background checks he can get any weapon he wants no doubt.
Another "legal" gun owner strikes again.
Hey ANTHONYVET, how many of these situations are perpetrated by a LEGAL GUN OWNER?! Why don't you try to find out? I will give you a clue, THEY HIDE THIS TYPE OF INFORMATION IN BOOKS! Try reading some actual facts instead of listening to the Communist News Network!
Another NRA supporter no doubt.
Lets see this fellow has lots of gun is paranoid,delusional,,hates the government,believes in government conspiracies,has a bunker and is anti-social. Sounds like a hardcore NRA member who many refer to as a: "gun nut". And a poor boy and his parents are now paying the price. I know there are many more of these ticking "time bombs" ready to go off,and armed to the teeth.
And comments like these are setting them off. Stop and think, all the comments made from both sides whether they are for guns or against them have escaladed to the point that everyones emotions are too high. People are posting extreme comments and if anything it is making each other angrier.
Wonder how many assualt rifles he got in hs bunker why they have not stormed it yet?
Free Speech? You dont need that, and I am offended by those of you who "think" it is somehow your right. Anyone who believes differently than me is a mental case and therefore should never be allowed to own a weapon. Mental exams for everyone!
Another angry old white guy with guns. Part of the Republican base.
Being in the service for many years I saw his type,the anti-social Rambos who nobody could stand. These Rambos were scary as they were ticking time bombs. And all thought they were "super' patriots of course.
Yeah, cause we all know how well "praying" to the imaginary sky fairy always helps in these situations.
Elizabeth Aspen
Yeah, cause we all know how well "praying" to the imaginary sky fairy always helps in these situations.
You know what Elizabeth, I understand that you have the right to freedom of expression. I would not deny you that right. However just because you have the right to think and speak for yourself, this does not mean that you should. You are a hurtful person. No one forces you to believe in God, but you do not need to disrespect other people who do. It is people EXACTLY LIKE YOU that I blame for the problems of modern society. I WILL pray for you every day.
As long as we are trying everything, I don't see how praying can hurt. I don't think it will hurt you for people to pray for this child, Elizabeth-or will it? Have you been hurt that badly? I'm very sorry if you have, and I mean that.
I'm guessing this sick monster has a gas mask and a protective suit to repel chemical attacks. I say send in Wayne LaPiere since he was a vet. Sorry Little Wayne had a "nervous" condition and evaded the draft.
Not this sh!t again.