Latest News

The negotiations, described as tense and delicate, began Tuesday afternoon, when local law enforcement officials, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and SWAT teams surrounded the bunker off a dirt road in Midland City, a small town in southern Alabama peanut country, near the Florida and Georgia borders.

The incident began when the man, identified as Jimmy Lee Dykes, 65, boarded a bus carrying children home from school, fatally shot the driver and grabbed the boy. Sheriff Wally Olsen, of Dale County, said the situation was not one that was likely to conclude quickly.

The boy is reportedly doing well, said an Alabama state senator, Harri Anne Smith, in a television interview early Thursday. She and state Representative Steve Clouse have met with the boy's mother, who wanted to ensure that his medication was delivered to the bunker, along with coloring books and food.

Still, Mr. Clouse said, the family is "just holding on by a thread."

He and law enforcement officials have said there appears to be no connection between the boy and Mr. Dykes.

"I think it's just a random kidnapping here," he said.

In interviews on local television stations, neighbors said they had had altercations with Mr. Dykes over people and dogs trespassing on his property and that he had spent much of the last few years digging and moving cinder blocks to construct what they said was a bunker about 4 feet wide, 6 feet long and perhaps 8 feet high.

The bunker has power, a television and appears to be well stocked, law enforcement officials have said.

The authorities have communicated with Mr. Dykes through a PVC pipe that extends from the bunker.

Tim Byrd, chief investigator with the Dale County Sheriff's Office, told the Southern Poverty Law Center's Hatewatch blog that Mr. Dykes was a Vietnam veteran suffering from post-traumatic stress who "did not trust the government."

According to court records, Mr. Dykes had been scheduled to appear in court on Wednesday to face charges of menacing. He is accused of shooting at neighbors in an altercation involving a neighbor driving on his property.

"He has been for a long time a source of concern," Rhonda Wilber, a neighbor, told local television reporters. "He has been like a time bomb waiting to go off."