Police are continuing their standoff with a man that killed a bus driver and kidnapped a student, in Alabama. The hostage situation is already into its seventh day, reports say.
Dykes, a decorated Vietnam veteran, threatened to shoot the other children on the bus if he couldn't get his way.
“He said he was going to kill us, going to kill us all. [...] He just tried to back up and reverse and [Dykes] pulled out the gun and he just shot him, and he just took Ethan,” 14-year-old witness Tarrica Singletary explains.
As we
wrote before, the suspect, now identified as 65-year-old retired teacher Jimmy Lee Dykes, shot the school bus driver when he wouldn't allow him to pull a child off the bus.
He went on to kidnap a 5-year-old identified as Ethan, who suffers from autism. He is being held in a bunker in Midland City, Alabama.
Police are in contact with the kidnapper through a ventilation pipe, which has also been used to send the hostage his medication, food and toys.
Ethan's next-door neighbor Cindy Steiner describes that his mother is worried about his mental status.
“Because Ethan being autistic, he has behavior problems, and she doesn't want him to get in one of those moods where he's uncontrollable. She's scared what would happen,” Steiner tells
ABC News.
“Hang tough, little man. [...] We love you. We are praying for you,” she adds. Prayer sessions have also been held after driver Chuck Poland was buried on Sunday.
Local PD are working with the FBI during this crisis situation. They have used the days that have passed since Ethan was taken hostage to perform an investigation into how to extract him.
“It gives them more time to study this bunker,” former FBI profiler Brad Garrett says.
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