DEVELOPING STORY: Standoff Ensues In Alabama After School-Bus Driver Shot And Killed; Suspect Reportedly Holed Up In Private ‘Bunker’ After Taking 6-Year-Old — And Drama Plays Out During Senate Hearing
DEVELOPING STORY: A standoff with police is occurring in southeastern Alabama, amid reports that a school-bus driver was shot and killed yesterday after he refused to submit to the demands of an armed man who wanted to remove two children from the bus. The suspected shooter then allegedly fled with a six-year-old and now is holed up with the child in his private “bunker” in Dale County
The drama is unfolding in the town of Midland. The Dothan Eagle newspaper has identified the suspect as 67-year-old Jimmy Lee Dykes.
FoxNews.com is reporting that Dykes was scheduled to be in court today on a previous charge of menacing. Local authorities have identified the bus driver as Charles Albert Poland Jr., a 66-year-old employee of the Dale County Board of Education.
The Senate Judiciary Committee is conducting a hearing today on gun violence in the United States. (NOTE: if you visit the Senate page at the time of this post, you’ll see a link to a live webcast.)
The Dothan region is known to have had brushes with purported “sovereign citizens.” Whether Dykes holds “sovereign” beliefs is unclear.
But a neighbor told the Dothan Eagle that Dykes “is the type that thinks the government’s out to get him.”
In February 2012, James Timothy Turner, a purported “sovereign” and the purported “President” of the “Republic for the united States of America,” named the Dothan Eagle a defendant in a lawsuit, apparently because he was displeased with the paper’s coverage.
In September 2012, Turner was indicted on tax charges amid U.S. Justice Department claims he “conducted seminars at which he taught attendees how to file retaliatory liens against government officials and to defraud the IRS by preparing and submitting fictitious bonds to the United States government in payment of federal taxes.”
In November 2011, Pennsylvania attorney and accused New Jersey thief and Ponzi schemer Michael W. Kwasnik was arrested in Dothan. Police said he was found in possession of “items essential for out of country travel such as passports and maps.”
[…] See story from last week. […]