After seven days in a bunker, Alabama authorities have killed a gunman and abductor, identified as Jimmy Dykes, who was holding a 5-year-old boy hostage in an underground bunker in rural Alabama on Monday. He plucked the child to safety without injury, a local law enforcement official said.
"It's all over," said the official, who asked not to be identified by name because he had not been authorized to discuss the operation that led to the successful rescue of the child, according to Reuters.
"The boy is OK," the official said.
Dykes, the 65-year-old captor, who allegedly fatally shot school bus driver Charles Albert Poland Jr. last Tuesday, after shooting him four times with a 9 mm handgun, local sheriff's department officials said. He then abducted 5-year-old boy Ethan, and held him captive for a week. Dykes was said to be a survivalist and Vietnam veteran, and was speaking to hostage negotiators.
Over the weekend, hundreds of mourners gathered in Ozark, Alabama this past weekend for Poland's funeral. For almost a week, police cars, trucks, helicopters and officers from multiple agencies and news media were camped out in rural Midland City. The hostage standoff lasted for nearly a week, as negotiators had discussions with Dykes through a pipe.
The law enforcement source said a stun or flash grenade was detonated as part of the operation to free the boy, but further details were not immediately available.
