5-Year-Old Alabama Hostage Freed In Raid

An image via ABC News of Ethan, the 5-year-old boy held hostage in a nearly week-long standoff in Alabama. (ABC News)

Questions are being asked about the raid last night that freed the 5-year-old boy who’d been held hostage for nearly a week in an underground bunker in southern Alabama.

Law enforcement officials aren’t saying how the boy’s captor, 65-year-old Jimmy Lee Dykes, died in the raid.

It is known that military equipment had been brought in, and a small camera was reportedly lowered into the bunker, allowing SWAT teams to see how to burst in and save the boy.

WBHM reporter Dan Carson told Here & Now that while authorities have not explicitly said that Dykes was shot and killed by the agents who stormed the underground bunker, most people close to the situation believe that’s what happened.

“There are two reasons that authorities gave for being so tight-lipped all along. One was they didn’t want to antagonize a man who was clearly unstable and dangerous and holding a little boy. And the other is they’ve got an eye toward future similar situations, so they’re being very protective over their sources and methods,” WBHM reporter Dan Carson told Here & Now.

Guest:

• Dan Carsen, reporter for WBHM, Birmingham’s NPR radio station. He tweets @WBHMEdDesk.