No Change As Midland City Hostage Situation Enters Seventh Day

MIDLAND CITY, Alabama – Negotiations continue in Midland City, Ala., Monday, where hostage negotiators are attempting to talk 65-year-old Jimmy Lee Dykes out of the underground bunker where he has been holding a 5-year-old boy hostage since Tuesday afternoon.

Federal law enforcement agencies are conducting the negotiations through a PVC ventilation pipe that leads into the bunker. According to an Associated Press report, authorities are also using the pipe to deliver medicine and comfort items, such as a coloring book, a Hot Wheels toy car, and Cheez-Its crackers to the boy, Ethan, who Dykes abducted from a Dale County school bus Tuesday after allegedly shooting the driver to death.

On Sunday, residents of the area laid the bus driver, Charles Albert Poland, Jr., 66, to rest in nearby Ozark, Ala. Poland was remembered as a hero who tried to stop Dykes from taking a child hostage. 
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