Boy safe, suspect dead after Alabama bunker standoff

Authorities have killed a gunman holding a 5-year-old boy hostage in an underground bunker in rural Midland City, Ala., and rescued the child without injury, a local law enforcement official told Reuters. Police say 65-year-old Jim Dykes had been holding the boy hostage for days. The ordeal began when Dykes snatched the boy off a school bus full of youngsters and fled with his hostage to an underground bunker, where authorities sent food, medicine and other items, officials said. Police said Dykes killed 66-year-old bus driver Charles Albert Poland Jr. before escaping with the kindergartner, who has Asperger's syndrome and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, according to a state lawmaker who has spent time with the child's mother. [Source]

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