After hostage negotiations broke down and a "survivalist" kidnapper was found to have a 5-year-old boy in "imminent danger" with a gun, the kindergartner known as "Ethan" was rescued today by a team of FBI agents, thus ending a six-day standoff at the hands of a man thought to be a 65-year-old truck driver named Jimmy Lee Dykes, who allegedly shot and killed the boy's bus driver and took the boy into an underground bunker in Midland City, Alabama.  

In a brief press conference outside the site where the boy was held, Alabama and U.S. law-enforcement officials said that officers encountered Dykes, who was holding a gun, after breaching the cavern where Dykes had been keeping the boy. The officials quickly shot and killed Dykes and rescued the boy, who is being returned to his family.

The boy's family is "so happy and cannot stop smiling," according to a local CBS reporter. Neighbors had previously described Dykes a troubled man with "anti-American" views. Authorities did not go into further detail about the rescue operation or mention Dykes by name.

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J.K. Trotter