Wednesday, Jan. 30, 2013

MIDLAND CITY, Ala. (AP) -- A gunman holed up in a bunker with a 6-year-old hostage is continuing to keep law officers at bay in rural Alabama.

It's been an all-night, all-day standoff that began when the man allegedly killed a school bus driver in the small town of Midland and dragged the boy away.

The Dale County sheriff says negotiators continue talking to the suspect and "at this time" have no reason to believe that the child has been harmed. It's unclear if the suspect has made any demands from his underground bunker, which resembles a tornado shelter.

SWAT teams are in positions around the man's property.

The gunman, identified by neighbors as Jimmy Lee Dykes, a 65-year-old retired truck driver, is known around the neighborhood as a menacing figure who 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 shotgun.

He had been scheduled to appear in court this morning to answer charges he shot at his neighbors in a dispute last month over a speed bump.

(Copyright 2013, The Associated Press)