SWAT teams and hostage negotiators are gathered near the home of Jimmy Lee Dykes in the small town of Midland City.
Police say Dykes, a 65-year-old retired truck driver, boarded a stopped school bus in Midland City on Tuesday afternoon (local time). He shot the driver when he refused to let a 6-year-old boy off the bus. The gunman then took the boy away and has yet to release him.
Reports say Dykes was supposed to appear in court on Wednesday to answer charges he shot at his neighbours in a dispute over a speed bump.
Dykes was described by neighbours as 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.
