01x09 - The Boy In The Bunker Part 1

[bunniefuu]

- He pulls out
a Ruger 9 millimeter,

and d*kes shoots it five times
in front of 21 kids.

- This guy's already
committed a homicide.

I have no reason to think
that he wouldn't do it again.

- Behind the bus driver
is this little kid, Ethan.

Just throws him
over his shoulder,

runs toward a bunker
that he built on his property.

- If they could get
a clear shot on d*kes,

they would take it, but it had
to be a game-ending shot,

basically a k*ll shot.

He said, by tomorrow, 5:30,
if I don't get what I want,

the m*therf*ckers up there
who are in charge,

they're gonna be responsible
for what happens.

- All right,
and so he's got a hostage,

but does he really want...
does he wanna k*ll cops?

Is that what he wants?

[dramatic music]

- In the FBI, we make
a lot of headlines.

♪

Drug busts,

mob stings,

t*rror1st takedowns.

- Get down! Get down!

- We understand why people
want to tell stories about us.

- Mark it.

- Freeze!
- FBI.

- FBI!
- Action!

- But they don't know
the half of it.

[indistinct radio chatter]

What really goes down,

we save that for each other

when we're talking
agent to agent.

♪

This is "FBI True."

[dramatic music]

♪

- Cindy Coppola is a 23-year
veteran of the FBI.

She worked on cases
that included organized crime

and terrorism and took part in
multinational investigations

into drug trafficking
and money laundering.

Coppola finished her career
with the Los Angeles Division

running two offices,
supervising investigations

and providing undercover
security for special events.

- But the thing is,
I don't know,

how did you guys even meet?

- We met on this crazy

hostage bunker case...
- Bunker.

- Which was nine years ago,

coming up on ten years.
- Coming up on ten years.

- It will be ten years
in January, February.

I was in bed asleep, and my
BlackBerry started going off.

And all we were told was
that there was a little boy

who'd been kidnapped, and
a bus driver had been k*lled.

- Molly Amman was a profiler

at the FBI's Behavioral
Analysis Unit at Quantico.

She specialized
in domestic threats,

stalkers, extortionists,
mass attackers,

and active shooters.

- And there was a note,
and they wanted to know

what the profilers could
make of that note.

♪

We spent a couple hours on it.
Went back to bed at 1:00,

thinking that it would be over.

Usually, these things are over

by the time you wake up
the next morning,

but that was not
the case at all.

- Just before 4:00 p.m.
yesterday,

we responded to a sh**ting
on a Dale County school bus

and discovered that
the suspect had fled the scene

with a small child.

- And Bill, you were still
at HRT, right?

- Yeah.

So HRT is
the Hostage Rescue Team.

It's the FBI's
counterterrorism team.

- Bill Francis was
with the FBI's

Elite Hostage Rescue Team
for 17 years,

most of it as a team leader.

He specialized
in hostage situations,

high security events,
and dignitary protection.

- So what actually,
though, happened?

Like, you know, what was
the beginning of it?

- It was a little city
called Midland City,

just outside
of Dothan, Alabama.

A man called Jimmy Lee d*kes
befriended bus driver,

Charles Poland,
by improving a turnaround

on his property
for a school bus.

The school bus would come up
the drive every morning,

pick up the kids.

And reverse in the afternoon,

come up, drop the kids off.

So the bus had to make
a turn on his property.

And d*kes would often get
on the bus at the turnaround

and give the bus driver
vegetables

that he grew on his property.

And the bus driver felt
sorry for d*kes.

He would give stuff
that his wife had made,

like jellies, eggs,
things like that.

- So there was a video
from the bus.

The bus had a rearward
facing camera

that was set
over the driver's head.

So you couldn't see
the driver,

but you could see
everything after, like,

the first row of seats
in the bus.

♪

- So on this particular day,
on the 29th,

it's the afternoon, 3:00-ish,

and d*kes has a bag
with collard greens

or something
sticking out the top.

As soon as d*kes gets
on the bus,

the bus driver thinks he's
gonna give him vegetables.

He drops the bag.

He pulls out
a Ruger 9 millimeter.

♪

And he points it
at the bus driver.

Hands him a note at this point,

and then he demands
two children,

well-behaved,
six to ten years of age.

He claims that they're
not gonna be harmed.

Bus driver, of course, refuses
to give him the children.

He says, "The kids are
my responsibility.

I can't do that."

Very clearly denies
d*kes' request.

- d*kes becomes more animated
as time goes on.

What d*kes doesn't know
is there's another child

on the bus about halfway back,
Tre Watts,

who is on the phone with 911.

- I cannot risk the kids.

- At some point, d*kes hears
the sirens, and he says that.

He says, "The law is coming.
I don't have much time."

- "Give me...I need two kids."

Bus driver says,
"I can't do that.

I can't. I can't."

- d*kes says he's gonna
have to sh**t him.

- d*kes ultimately shoots him,
and he shoots him five times

in front of 21 kids on a bus.

- That's horrible.
- Cold-blooded m*rder

in front of those kids.

- Immediately behind the bus
driver is this little kid,

Ethan, just scared,
crouched down behind there.

And he's trying to grab
the closest kid to him.

You can hear d*kes saying...

- "Come here. Come here, kid.
Come here."

[children screaming and crying]

Ethan had Asperger's syndrome,

and that was the reason
he was in that front seat,

because the driver wanted
to keep an eye on him

because he had some issue...
behavioral issues.

So d*kes was able
to grab Ethan.

He's five years old,
you know, very light kid.

Just throws him over
his shoulder and takes off,

runs toward a bunker
that he built on his property.

He lived in a FEMA trailer.

The bunker's over here

where the little
square hatch is.

And that's when he calls 911.

- The hardest part of that
to watch was at the end

when the kids...
he's off the bus, Ethan's gone.

You can see the kids tracking
out the window,

then facing forward
on Mr. Poland

and losing their minds,

understanding
what had just happened.

- But you hadn't
gotten called yet?

- Right, but we were aware
of the kidnapping on the 29th.

- In the 911 call,
d*kes directs law enforcement.

He says he has a...
he has a kid.

He's a hostage.

He wants law enforcement
to come to his gate

on his road and speak to him
through this PVC pipe.

- I remember seeing that
on the news.

It was, like, this white thing

coming up
out of the ground, right?

- Yeah.
We called it the speaking tube.

- What did he say
that he wanted?

- It was pretty weird from
a violent crime standpoint.

What he wanted was a reporter

who he identified by name...

so it was someone that
he liked, female reporter.

He wanted her to come down
into the bunker,

and then he would let Ethan go.

And he said that she would hold
his hand while he told his...

she broadcast his story
to the world,

and then he would die
by suicide, which is...

- Crazy.
- Nuts.

- And of course, the Bureau
would never allow that.

- That was a hard no.

But so well thought-out.

That was the scary part.

- This bunker had
one entry point,

and we had to get
in there quick enough

to save Ethan before d*kes had
time to sh**t the hostage.

Sometime, I think it was
around 9:00 that night,

he's done talking for the day,
he goes to bed.

The b*mb techs show up.

They decide they want
to get visual into the bunker.

They decide they're gonna
drill a hole through that pipe

and then send about 200 feet
of fiber optic cable

and maybe get a look inside.

Well, when they penetrated
that 3-inch pipe,

the drill bit hit
something else solid.

- Oy.

- These are b*mb techs.
- Yeah.

- Their spidey senses went
crazy at that point.

So they brought in,
of course, an X-ray machine,

X-rayed the pipe,
and lo and behold,

inside the pipe was about
a 3-foot section of pipe b*mb.

- Oh, my God,
so they're, like, up close,

you know,
talking through this tube,

and then now
they're drilling a hole

potentially where
a b*mb could go off.

So in their minds now,

they gotta think
d*kes is pretty smart, right?

- Sure. Sure.

He's very smart.

He's not all there,
but he's very smart

in terms of his actions
and his planning.

- The pipe b*mb
in the speaking tube

raised all kinds of questions.

All right,
so he's got a hostage,

but does he really want...
does he wanna k*ll cops?

Is that what he wants?

Did he really have
a story to tell?

I mean,
the questions at that point

were many more
than we had answers.

- Police in Midland City,
Alabama,

say a man shot and k*lled
a school bus driver

and then grabbed
a 6-year-old boy from the bus

and took him
to an underground bunker.

Now, hostage negotiators are
trying to end the standoff

that began
more than 24 hours ago.

- By the next morning,
FBI came down on the scene.

This was 100% a joint effort,

state, federal, local,

probably 300 sworn
law enforcement officers.

We didn't want d*kes
to know that we knew

there was an IED
in the speaking tube.

And we brought up
a speaker on a pole,

put it right into the tube

so d*kes would
continue to think

someone was talking to him
at the speaker.

- That's cool.
That's a good idea.

- At that point,
what they wanted to do

was get a negotiator
throw phone into there,

because they could actually
call him when they wanted to.

- Knowing the Bureau,

we could probably
record it as well, right?

- Sure, sure. Record it...
- You know, so...yeah.

- Analyze it for intel,
that kind of stuff.

Let us give you this phone.
- Okay.

- You can call us
whenever you want to.

We'll always have somebody
ready to talk to you.

So he agreed.
- That was so critical,

not just
to communicate with him,

but it established his
willingness to open the hatch.

And that was a tremendous
victory for the negotiators,

getting that willingness
established,

because now,
we can start to habituate him

to opening it again on request.

- What does
the bunker look like?

- What d*kes had done
is he put...the hatch was heavy.

It was heavy.
It was built with 2x6s.

So it was stout.

Had a big lip
all the way around,

which prevented us
from really seeing

down in there very much.

Very large Alabama country boys
only lift that hatch

as far as he would
let them lift it.

Believe me, he didn't
need anything from us.

He had water for weeks.

He had food for weeks.

He had a bucket in there
for a toilet.

He had ventilation.

He needed nothing from us.

- He had estimated
that he had enough supplies

for six to eight weeks.

- What we did have
is we had Ethan.

- Police have shared
few details

about negotiations
with Jimmy Lee d*kes.

They are speaking to him
through a 4-inch

ventilation pipe connected
to his underground shelter.

His five-year-old hostage has
been identified only as Ethan.

- Ethan had been diagnosed
with what was then known

as Asperger syndrome
and another condition,

and that's what required

a couple
of different medications.

- So the local FBI there
was able to contact,

obviously,
the mother or father,

or they were able
to talk to him and say,

this is what he needs.

- Yes, the mother supplied
that information

and the medicine for that.

- But d*kes didn't know this
when he took him.

- But as Ethan would start
to act up,

it was more work for d*kes.

So negotiators were able
to sort of

weave that
into the conversation.

Say, hey, if you let us
deliver this medicine

twice a day, sometimes
it was three times a day,

this will keep him calm.

And he was all about that.

He was all about
keeping Ethan calm,

because this bunker is...
it's tight.

So that allowed us
to have him open that hatch,

to crack it for...
you know, several times a day,

and we could collect intel

every time it happened.
- That's awesome.

- The FBI had
this huge operation set up

at this church,
Destiny Church,

which is immediately down
the road from d*kes' property.

First thing we had to do
was shrink that problem down.

There is potential for IEDs
all over this property.

We looked at the property,

and there's these pipes
sticking up, PVC pipes.

- Do you think they're vents
for air or no?

- We don't know.
- Right.

- Knowing that he's talked
about having IEDs

and booby traps,
so we have to clear

that whole area of those IEDs,
and we did.

We brought in our canines
with expl*sive detection.

We ultimately didn't
find anything

between the speaking tube IED
and the hatch of the bunker.

While we were doing that,
we collected up

pretty much every piece
of garbage we could find.

- And did you guys find
anything useful

in the trash cover?
- Oh, my goodness, we did.

We did.
We found a triggering device.

Like, it was a shotgun taped
into a plastic bottle.

We found hundreds
of shotgun shells

that had been cut open,
the powder removed.

- Okay.
- We found PVC pipes,

we found glue, we found
receipts for bicycle cables,

propane tanks, eye bolts,
all these different things.

And those were all...
all proved to be, like,

a treasure trove of intel

in terms of how this hatch
was constructed.

The other thing we did is,
every time we went up,

one of our Houston County
partners,

who was actually the voice
at the bunker

for the whole seven days,
the original guy,

we were able to route a camera
through his glove,

a little pinhole camera.

So every time he would go
to lift that hatch,

he could sh**t video
under the hatch.

[dramatic music]

♪

- A 5-year-old boy
is being held at gunpoint

for a third day
in a hostage standoff

in Midland City, Alabama.

A 65-year-old man
with a history

of violent run-ins
with his neighbors

kidnapped the boy
from a school bus.

Those neighbors identify him
as Jimmy Lee d*kes,

and police say that he shot
and k*lled the bus driver

who tried
to shield his students.

- What do you guys do then?

- So what we're driving toward

is a deliberate as*ault,

which is a planned as*ault.

So we decide when to go.

- Yeah, it's fatal funnel.

Like, you have
a fatal funnel going.

- We wanted our own area
to practice our as*ault,

to refine
this deliberate as*ault option.

The only area they had was
a building across the street,

which they described to us as,
that's the old strip club.

And within hours, we had
a full-scale mock-up built

right behind the strip club.
- Wow.

♪

- Meantime,
while we're doing this,

Molly is developing
this profile of our subject.

- When I watched
the bus video a few times,

quickly realized that I was
coming up with a profile,

or at least the beginnings
of a profile

that was really very alarming.

- What I saw was,

I saw Jimmy Lee d*kes wasn't
getting what he wanted,

and time was ticking.

You could hear it in his voice.

- Nothing was going according
to plan really,

but he stayed on mission.

He was completely focused.

And so I showed that to Bill
and I pointed that out to him,

and this guy's already
committed a homicide.

I have no reason to think
that he wouldn't do it again.

I think that
in a confrontation,

he would very likely use
lethal force against your guys.

- What did he say
that he wanted?

- He wanted to tell his story.

He thought, this reporter will
come down into the hole,

and she will broadcast my story
as I tell it live,

and the world will
essentially be inflamed

and revolution will erupt.

Something having to do
with systematic injustices

perpetrated
against the little guy

by those with celebrity,
power, money, et cetera.

- Yeah, he hated the government
or the establishment or...

- He...it's more accurate
to say that he hated

any aspect of the establishment
or the government

that affected him
in a way he didn't like.

- That hostage standoff
in Midland City, Alabama,

is going into its fourth day.

The police have been
speaking with d*kes

through a ventilation pipe.

No progress so far.

- We did see a change
in behavior

because he sort of
treated Ethan,

not with kindness,
but almost grandfatherly.

He fed him. He made sure
he brushed his teeth.

You know, he helped him go
to the bathroom,

those kinds of things.

And when Ethan would cry,

he would try to comfort him.

We're always looking
along the way

for targets of opportunity
that might pop up.

The deputy, he would go up
to the hatch every day

and have conversations
with d*kes.

And he would complain
that the hatch was so heavy,

it was hurting his back.

But he would have
to grab the hatch

and do a squat to lift it up
to 3 or 4 inches.

It was that heavy.

So they had this conversation
a couple of times,

and d*kes explained
that he had a frame,

and he says that he can
help him attach springs,

and it'll make it easier
on the deputy...

- Sure.
- To lift that hatch.

We saw that as a target
of opportunity.

♪

The plan was pretty simple,

that the negotiators would talk
to d*kes.

They would accept his offer

to assist in reattaching
the springs.

His assistance would
involve him coming up

into the access tube,

lifting up from underneath
on the hatch.

- So he'd have
to be somewhat close

to the top of the ladder
or steps or whatever.

- Well, that's
what we were thinking.

So we got permission
to execute this plan.

We had assaulters staged
right at the edge of the hatch,

right at the lip.

Their objective was,
if they could get

a clear shot on d*kes,
they would take it,

and they would end
the problem right there.

But it had to be
a game-ending shot,

basically a k*ll shot.

So we were really inches from
getting a clean shot on d*kes

and ending the situation
on day five.

But in those fractions
of seconds,

he viewed a barrel,
a g*n barrel,

before our guys could actually
get a shot on him.

- Ah, sh*t.
- And he went back down

in a hurry, around the corner,

slammed the hatch,
dogged it down.

And this just kind of
spiraled him out of control.

Went back to negotiators,
"What are you guys doing?

You're trying to k*ll me.
That hero up there."

And he just went off.
He just went off.

- This is a game-changer,
a turnaround point, right?

- It really was.
Shortly after that

is when he gave
the first deadline,

where he said,
by tomorrow, 5:30,

if I don't get what I want,

the m*therf*ckers up there
who are in charge,

they're gonna be responsible
for what happens,

basically implying that
he's gonna probably detonate

that IED if he doesn't get what
he wants by 5:30 the next day.

- These are some
of the behaviors that we call

warning behaviors,
that warn that someone

is really on a trajectory
towards violence.

- He was a time b*mb
waiting to go off.

If he really wanted to,

he could turn around
and k*ll Ethan.

- Nothing could dislodge him
from his insistence

that he and Ethan were
going to die.

- d*kes starts sh**ting at us,

and it was just a man trap.

We hear this loud expl*si*n
behind us.

- I said, Director Mueller,
no assumption can be made

that Ethan is safe in his
custody even one more minute.

- At that point,
we were pretty f*cked.