Neighbors of Jimmy Lee Dykes say he was supposed to have been in court on Wednesday, facing charges that he'd shot at them during a December argument over the dirt road that separated their properties.

Instead, he was holed up in an underground bunker dug into his yard, surrounded by sheriff's deputies, state troopers and police.

Also inside the bunker, authorities say, is a 6-year-old boy seized from a school bus at gunpoint Tuesday afternoon. The bus driver, 66-year-old Charles Poland Jr., was shot and killed, but school officials said Wednesday he saved 21 other children on board.

Authorities have not released the name of the suspected gunman. But neighbors Jimmy Davis and his mother, Claudia Davis, identified him as Dykes, as have news outlets around Midland City, about 90 miles south of Montgomery.

 

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