Alabama school bus shooter standoff: ‘Crazy man’ stays with 6-year-old in bunker

The Alabama school bus shooter suspect who has been identified as 65-year-old Jimmy Lee Dykes, is still holding up against a police standoff in an underground bunker with a six-year-old boy. Reuters reports on Jan. 30, 2013, that the Alabama shooter is “a Vietnam veteran with anti-America views.”

“Law enforcement officials from multiple agencies were convened near the bunker in Midland City as an overnight standoff with the shooter continued on Wednesday.”

While police SWAT teams and hostage negotiators continue to be locked in a standoff with the Alabama school bus shooter on Wednesday, law enforcement officials have evacuated more residents in the area to ensure their safety.

Jimmy Lee Dykes had a scheduled court appearance today in order to answer charges to allegedly having shot at his neighbors in a dispute over a speed bump.

As of Wednesday morning, suspect Jimmy Lee Dykes does not show any sign of wanting to appear in any court but remains retreated in a bunker at his home with a six-year-old boy who he allegedly snatched from a school bus after killing the school bus driver.

According the AP video, one of the students on the bus commented that Jimmy Lee Dykes said that "he needed a boy because the law is coming after him."

On Tuesday afternoon, suspect Jimmy Lee Dykes boarded a stopped school bus in the small town of Midland City, Ala. According to one mother whose children were on the bus, two school children had just been dropped off when Jimmy Lee Dykes stepped on the bus, blocked the door, and demanded two boys ages six and eight.

As Jimmy Lee Dykes headed towards the two boys, the school bus driver put his arm out to block Jimmy Lee Dykes. In response, Jimmy Lee Dykes fired four shots with a handgun at the school bus driver.

While Jimmy Lee Dykes and the school bus driver were arguing, one of the high school seniors on the school bus gathered the other children and exited out the back of the bus. One of the children immediately ran inside his home and got his mother. His older sister called 911 and his mother checked on the school bus driver who was slumped lifeless over his seat.

At this time it is still unknown why the suspect Jimmy Lee Dykes was looking specifically for those two boys and what kind of relationship he might have with them.

"’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,” writes CBS News on Jan. 30, 2013.

What is known about the Alabama school bus shooter at this time is that he is known among neighbors as “the crazy man” and as “a paranoid and combative man 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.”

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