‘Crazy man’ in child hostage stand-off

The gunman, identified by neighbours as Jimmy Lee Dykes, a 65-year-old retired truck driver, was known as “the crazy man” of the neighbourhood, a paranoid and combative man 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 was supposed to appear in court yesterday accused of shooting at his neighbours in a dispute last month over a speed bump.

The siege began on Tuesday when the gunman boarded a stopped school bus in the small town of Midland City, and dragged on through the night and into yesterday.

Sheriff Wally Olsen said the man shot the driver when he refused to hand over a six-year-old child. The gunman then took the boy away.

“As far as we know there is no relation at all. He just wanted a child for a hostage situation,” said Michael Senn, a church pastor who helped comfort the traumatised children after the attack.

Dykes was believed to be holed up in an underground bunker of the sort used to take shelter from a tornado, County Coroner Woodrow Hilboldt said.

The bus driver, Charles Albert Poland Jr, 66, was hailed by locals as a hero who gave his life to protect 21 students.

The shooting came as Congress discussed gun controls for the first time since the shooting of 20 children in Connecticut in December.

That hearing comes after President Barack Obama this month proposed banning military-style assault weapons, requiring background checks on all firearms purchases and limiting ammunition magazines to 10 rounds.

The US constitution guarantees the right to bear arms and the US has the world’s greatest gun ownership. Sales have jumped since the Connecticut shooting as many fear the government could confiscate guns, while others argue the founding fathers could not have foreseen the speed and power of today’s weapons.