fernandejackson: Military tactics, arms, helped rescue Ala. hostage

In this undated photo released by the FBI on Tuesday, Feb. 5, 2013, a tent covers the bunker where where a 5-year-old child was held for a week by Jimmy Lee Dykes in Midland City, Ala. The boy was rescued and his captor was killed when federal agents raided the bunker on Monday. (AP Photo/FBI)

This undated photo released by the FBI on Tuesday, Feb. 5, 2013, shows the pipe FBI agents and Dale County negotiators used to communicate with Jimmy Lee Dykes while he held a 5-year-old boy hostage in a bunker on his Midland City, Ala. property for a week. The pipe was also used to send food, medicine, and other items into the bunker. The boy was rescued and his captor was killed when federal agents raided the bunker on Monday. (AP Photo/FBI)

In this undated photo released by the FBI on Tuesday, Feb. 5, 2013, FBI agents and Dale County Sheriff's deputies secure the residence where a 5-year-old child was rescued after being held hostage for almost one week by Jimmy Lee Dykes, in Midland City, Ala. The boy was rescued and his captor was killed when federal agents raided the bunker on Monday. (AP Photo/FBI)

In this undated photo released by the FBI on Tuesday, Feb. 5, 2013, FBI agents and Dale County Sheriff?s deputies secure the residence where a 5-year-old child was rescued after being held hostage for almost one week by Jimmy Lee Dykes, in Midland City, Ala. The bunker where the two were holed up is covered by a blue tent, at rear left. The boy was rescued and his captor was killed when federal agents raided the bunker on Monday. (AP Photo/FBI)

Within hours after an armed, angry man shot a school bus driver and kidnapped a 5-year-old boy, workers feverishly unloaded boxes packed with percussive grenades, military C-4 explosives and an array of guns from a windowless DC-9 that had landed just miles from the suspect's isolated compound.

Helmeted officers decked out in tan fatigues, camouflage and body armor, many carrying long guns, rumbled in rented cargo trucks to and from the property in southeastern Alabama where 65-year-old Jimmy Lee Dykes and his young captive were hunkered down in a roughly 6-by-8-foot hand-dug bunker with only one small hatch for an entryway.

Two Humvees belonging to the Dale County Sheriff's Department and a tan, military-style personnel carrier were parked in a field beside the bunker throughout much of the ordeal, along with sport-utility vehicles. Officers dressed in combat-style gear could be seen watching the bunker from an opening in the roof of the tan personnel vehicle.

And as the standoff stretched into days, drones flew large, lazy circles high above the scene at night.

In many ways, the scene resembled more of a wartime situation than a domestic crime scene as civilian law enforcement relied heavily on military tactics and equipment to end the six-day ordeal.

No military combat personnel were at the scene, according to a law-enforcement official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to release the information.

But authorities' decision to rely on every tool at their disposal paid off: Dykes had planted an explosive device in a ventilation pipe he'd told negotiators to use to communicate with him on his property in the rural Alabama community of Midland City, and also placed another explosive device inside the bunker, the FBI said in a statement late Tuesday.

Dykes appears to have "reinforced the bunker against any attempted entry by law enforcement," FBI agent Jason Pack said in the statement.

The FBI said in an email late Wednesday that bomb technicians had "completed their work today and cleared the crime scene. No additional devices were found." Dykes' body was removed, and an autopsy is scheduled for Thursday. The news release said the crime scene will be processed over the next few days and that a shooting review team dispatched from Washington was continuing its investigation.

The raid on the bunker was carried out by the FBI's hostage response team, which serves as the agency's full-time counterterrorism unit, Pack said Wednesday. Trained in military tactics and outfitted with combat-style gear and weapons, the group was formed 30 years ago in preparation for the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles.

Composed of FBI agents, some of whom have prior military experience, the team is deployed quickly to trouble spots and provides assistance to local FBI offices during hostage situations. It has participated in hostage situations more than 800 times in the U.S. and elsewhere since 1983, the FBI said.

"As an elite counterterrorism tactical team for law enforcement, the HRT is one of the best, if not the best, in the United States," Sean Joyce, deputy FBI director, said in a statement released during the Alabama standoff.

In addition to employing its counterterrorism unit, the FBI brought out a full array of military-style equipment, including armored personnel carriers and combat rifles. Many were visible at the scene during the standoff.

According to a U.S. official, about a dozen active-duty Navy Seabees ? sailors who belong to special naval construction units ? helped law-enforcement authorities build a mock-up of the bunker that was used to plan the FBI assault. The official, who was not authorized to discuss the rescue effort, spoke on condition of anonymity.

"This was a classic, textbook situation," said Clint Van Zandt, a former FBI negotiator who worked with the hostage rescue team repeatedly before retiring in 1995.

Building a replica of Dykes' bunker, practicing an assault, negotiating Dykes into a sense of security and even sneaking a camera into the shelter are all part of the agency's tools, said Van Zandt. He saw nothing unusual in the agency's tactics or the methods it used in ending the standoff.

"I don't want to say this was routine, but this is what negotiators and team members train to do all the time," added Van Zandt, president of Van Zandt Associates, Inc., a Virginia-based company that profiles and assesses threats for corporate clients.

"To me, there was nothing unique in this other than it played out in front of the world."

FBI and other officials said the team exchanged gunfire with Dykes and killed him before rescuing the little boy, whom law enforcement officials have only identified by his first name, Ethan.

Earlier Wednesday, Dale County Coroner Woodrow Hilboldt told The Associated Press it could be Thursday before he would be allowed in to pronounce Dykes dead and take the body to Montgomery for an autopsy at the state forensic laboratory.

Military tactics and clandestine hostage-rescue methods were far from the minds of regular folks in Midland City on Wednesday, Ethan's sixth birthday, as they tried desperately to return to normal life while giving thanks for the heart-wrenching event's joyous outcome.

"We need a day or two to get our minds around what happened," said an aunt, Debra Cook.

The boy, who has Asperger's syndrome and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, was said to be acting like a normal kid despite his nearly weeklong captivity after a man police identified as Dykes nabbed him off a school bus on Jan. 29 and fatally shot the driver.

Officials hope to eventually throw a party to celebrate Ethan's birthday and to honor the memory of the slain driver, Charles Albert Poland Jr.

Hundreds of miles away, a woman who knows all too well what Ethan may have gone through expressed her own thanks Wednesday for the boy's safety.

Katie Beers, who was kidnapped as a 9-year-old in 1992 and kept in an underground bunker in suburban New York for 17 days before her captor surrendered to police and showed them where she was hidden, said she was "ecstatic" that Ethan was rescued safely.

Beers, who now lives in Pennsylvania, said it was likely that not only Ethan, but his family, would need counseling. "He's so young that hopefully he won't remember a lot," she said.

"But her family is also going to need counseling so they know how to deal with Ethan and help him through the ordeal."

___

Associated Press writers Frank Eltman in Mineola, N.Y., and Lolita Baldor in Washington, contributed to this report.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/3d281c11a96b4ad082fe88aa0db04305/Article_2013-02-06-Alabama%20Bunker%20Standoff/id-2c1daa872ad9437c97a69894b6e6b712

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