Alabama standoff: Negotiators talking to captor through pipe

Law officers at hostage scene in Midland City, Ala. / AP

Last Updated 2:50 p.m. ET

MIDLAND CITY, Ala.

The standoff between police and a gunman accused of holding a kindergartner hostage in an underground bunker dragged into a fourth day on Friday, as authorities sought to continue delicate conversations with the man through a pipe and worked to safely end the tense situation.

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Kindergartener still being held hostage in Ala. Bunker

The gunman shot a school bus driver to death Tuesday, grabbed a 5-year-old boy off the bus and slipped into an underground bunker on his property in rural Alabama, police said. There were signs the standoff could go on for some time: the shelter has electricity, food, TV, and police have delivered the boy's medication through a 4-inch-wide ventilation pipe leading to the bunker.

Hostage negotiators have used the pipe to talk to the gunman, identified by neighbors as Jimmy Lee Dykes, but investigators have been tight-lipped about their conversations.

Former FBI hostage negotiator Clint Van Zandt said authorities at the scene shouldn't rush to resolve the standoff as long as they are confident that the boy is unharmed. He cautioned against any drastic measures, such as cutting the electricity or putting sleep gas inside the bunker because it could agitate Dykes.

The negotiator should try to ease Dykes' anxieties over what will happen when the standoff ends, and refer to both the boy and Dykes by their first names to humanize them.

"I want to give him a reason to come out," Van Zandt said, "and my reason is, `You didn't mean that to happen. It was unintentional. It could have happened to anyone. It was an accident. People have accidents, Jimmy Lee. It's not that big a thing. You and I can work that out."'

The shelter was about 4 feet underground, with about 6-by-8 feet of floor space and the PVC pipe that negotiators were speaking through, said James Arrington, police chief of the neighboring town of Pinckard.

"He will have to give up sooner or later because (authorities) are not leaving," Arrington said. "It's pretty small, but he's been known to stay in there eight days."

Midland City Mayor Virgil Skipper said he has been briefed by law enforcement agents and has visited with the boy's parents.

"He's crying for his parents," he said. "They are holding up good. They are praying and asking all of us to pray with them."

Republican Rep. Steve Clouse, who represents the Midland City area, said he visited the boy's mother Thursday and that she is "hanging on by a thread."

"Everybody is praying with her for the boy," he said.

Clouse said the mother told him that the boy has Asperger's syndrome, an autism-like disorder, as well as attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, or ADHD. Police have been delivering medication to him through the pipe, he added.

The normally quiet red clay road leading to the bunker was teemed Friday with more than a dozen police cars and trucks, a fire truck, a helicopter, officers from multiple agencies and news media near Midland City, population 2,300.

Police vehicles have come and gone steadily for hours from the command post, a small church taken over for that use

Early Friday, activity picked up when a team in military-style uniforms, many toting weapons, got out of a big van in the pre-dawn chill and moved into a staging area. One appeared to be dog handler.

Dykes was known around the neighborhood as a menacing figure who neighbors said 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 firearm.

The chief confirmed that Dykes held anti-government views, as described by multiple neighbors: "He's against the government — starting with Obama on down."

"He doesn't like law enforcement or the government telling him what to do," he said. "He's just a loner."

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[NYgfwa]

C'mon, c'mon, C'MON! Use the sleeping and tear gasses through that pipe, blast the door open, beat that old prick Jimmy up and cuff him, and then save that kid and bring him up to the sunlight and his parents.

[whattheheckwasit]

It's wacko, gun nut, anti-government, survivalist, militia types like ***** that give all the other wacko, gun nut, anti-government, survivalist, militia types a bad name.

[mayanardo]

Crack-pot gummint paranoiac. How can this nutbag lawfully possess weapons. This event was a long time coming.

[lovehatefoxnews]

Eventually the guy will give up and child will be ok. Most any other tactic will endanger the child.

Hopefully Dianne Feinstein will introduce legislation, after this is all over, banning underground bunkers for civilians and combine it with her other useless legislation.

[spayneuteryourpets]

Too bad the bus driver didn't have a gun.

[mayanardo]

Too bad you don't have common sense. Best place for a drivers' hands is on the wheel, feet on gas and brakes, and attention upon the road, Yosemite Sam. We want to reduce needless death, not multiply them.

[Haole321]

This is such a horrible affair and I can't imagine what that little boy is going through and I hope and pray it ends on a positive note. All that being said, how does law enforcement justify what looks like a hundred police, SWAT and military personnel to apprehend ONE man who's in a hole? I do understand a bit of overkill but this is ridiculous...

[anthonymcclure]

Why not pump some kind of sleeping gas down there, and when he is asleep, break in?

[charleskaye]

I was thinking the same thing. The longer they wait, the longer this nut will contemplate killing himself and taking that kid with him. They could also run a camera into the pipe and see where he is, if there are any ways to get in, or wait until he's asleep and break in. C'mon cops, don't just sit there, shoot the scumbag and save the kid...

[spartyb]

i'll bet that LE are concerned about the dosage of gas. enough gas to knock out the adult could be too much for the boy and kill him. too little gas and you may agitate the man and end up with a worse situation than if you had left it alone. russia tried this in Chechnya a few years back and i think they ended up killing about half of the hostages with the knock out gas. just a guess...

[prm777]

It's hard to know how to deal with someone like this, who is clearly not dealing with a full deck. He's already killed one person, so he may feel he has nothing to lose -- the police need to talk him down from that way of thinking. On the one hand, they need to make it clear to him that they could excavate his little bunker in no time (perhaps bring in some heavy machinery as a show of force), but they also need to make it clear that it will go much better for him if he surrenders without harming the child. It's a delicate balance, given that this guy is clearly on the edge.

My prayers are with the family of the heroic bus driver and with this child's family. May God bring some temporary sanity to this man so that he releases the child unharmed.

[hemusbull]

This bloody idiot doesn't read newspapers and I wana promise him a death penalty after he release the child!

[margroks]

Does anyone have any idea why this idiot wanted a child in the first place?