A school bus driver was fatally shot in Midland County, Ala., by a man who boarded the bus with children on board and then abducted a six-year-old student. He is holding the child hostage in an underground bunker. WSFA's Samuel King reports.
By Erin McClam and Matthew DeLuca, NBC News
A boy was still being held captive in an underground bunker by a man described as a survivalist early Thursday, as authorities sought to end a hostage situation in southern Alabama that has already spanned 36 hours.?
The man kidnapped the boy on Tuesday afternoon after he stormed a school bus and demanded the bus driver hand over young children. When the driver refused, the suspect fatally shot him and grabbed the boy, who is 5 or 6. ?
The child is said to be "okay", having been given access to medicine and?the box of crayons and a coloring book he requested, according to WSFA-TV reporter Samuel King.?
Concerned citizens attended?vigils at several local churches Wednesday night, lighting candles and praying for the boy's safe release, WSFA reported.
"Right now the whole town seems like they're just in a mourning stage," convenience store?manager Carl McKenzie told the station. "I would go take that child's place if I could, just to get him out of danger." ??
At a press conference Wednesday evening, Dale County Sheriff Wally Olson said authorities "have no reason to believe the child has been harmed."
A disturbing picture has emerged of the suspect, who a source close to the investigation identified to NBC News as Jimmy Lee Dykes, 65. The source said he was a loner and survivalist who ?does not trust the government? and holds ?anti-American views.?
Read more: Hostage suspect was loner, missed court appearance
People in the remote town of Midland City said that they had seen him tirelessly digging up his own yard, even his driveway, sometimes in the middle of the night -- apparently building what one man in the neighborhood described as a bomb shelter fortified by sand.
Dykes burst onto the yellow school bus around 3:40 p.m. on Tuesday, authorities said. When the driver, Charles Albert Poland Jr., 66, tried to stop Dykes from taking children off the bus, he was fatally shot.?The source close to the investigation told NBC News that four spent bullets were found at the scene.
The county school system said that 21 students had made it off the bus safely, and praised Poland as a fallen hero. But the gunman made off with the one child, possibly because the boy fainted during the siege, according to WSFA, an NBC station.
Authorities offered no hints to the gunman?s motive.
Warm tributes were paid to Poland, who had held the job since 2009. Linda Williams, a county tax clerk whose cousin was married to Poland, described him to NBC News as ?a good Christian man? who was active in church.
?It says in the Bible the meek will inherit the earth,? brother-in-law Melvin Skipper told the Dothan Eagle newspaper. ?He was the meekest man I knew.?
Poland?s neighbor, Hilburn Benton, told the newspaper Poland refused to accept payment for work on his yard two years ago. ?He told me, ?You?re my friend and you?re my neighbor. I?m not charging you a dime,?? Benton recalled.
Dykes had been due in court Wednesday morning to face a misdemeanor charge of menacing. A neighbor, James E. Davis Jr., claimed that Dykes had pointed a pistol at his truck on Dec. 10 and fired the weapon.
The Associated Press said Dykes was accused of shooting at his neighbors in a dispute over a speed bump.
Dale County Board of Education
The Dothan Eagle?quoted another neighbor, Michael Creel, describing the bunker as a ?homemade bomb shelter,? roughly 4 feet wide, 6 feet long and 8 feet deep and covered by several feet of sand.
Another neighbor, Danny Dean, told NBC News that he had dug up his own driveway.
Rhonda Wilbur told WSFA that Dykes was a longtime source of concern in the neighborhood because ?he has been like a time bomb waiting for him to go off.? Wilbur told reporters that Dykes had beaten her dog to death with a lead pipe.
A minister, Michael Senn, told WSFA that the other children ran for safety and hid behind Destiny Church.
?All the kids are at a safe place,? he said, though he added that they all appeared to be in shock.
In addition to the county sheriff?s department, the FBI and a SWAT team were on the scene. A woman answering the phone at the Midland Police Department said the FBI had completely taken over and that local police were no longer involved. Authorities ordered people living nearby to leave during the standoff.
Schools in Dale County and the nearby city of Ozark were closed for the rest of the week. Dale County schools said counselors would be available to help students, including those who were on the bus.
NBC staff writers Isolde Raftery and Alastair Jamieson contributed to this report.
The Dothan Eagle via AP
A man boarded this stopped school bus in the town of Midland City on Tuesday afternoon and shot the driver when he refused to let a child off the bus. The bus driver died.
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