Police Shoot Armed Hostage-Taker in Discovery Channel Building (368 hits)
(Sept. 1) -- Police snipers this afternoon shot dead a gunman who had canisters strapped to his body and freed the three people he had been holding hostage inside the headquarters of the Discovery Channel in suburban Washington, authorities said.
All three hostages were safe, Montgomery County, Md., Police Chief Tom Manger said. He said police, who were watching the suspect on building security cameras, had been negotiating with the gunman for hours but decided to take him out when they saw him point a handgun at one of the hostages.
The suspect, identified by local media outlets as 43-year-old James J. Lee, was upset about the network's programming and had posted an angry rant on a website accusing the Discovery Channel of promoting overpopulation.
The man entered the building in Silver Spring, Md., around 1 p.m. today, armed with a gun and wearing metal canisters that appeared to be explosive devices, police said. "We heard three gunshots around 1:20 [p.m.]," a Discovery Channel employee who did not wish to be identified told AOL News. "Nobody is going anywhere," the gunman said, according to a Discovery Channel worker who got out of the building safely.
The gunman took two Discovery Channel employees and a security guard hostage in the lobby but the rest of the building, including a day care center on the first floor, was evacuated. "There are approximately ... 1,900 employees that work in the building," Manger told reporters while the hostage situation was still going on. "We believe most of them are out. ... Right now we have ... a small number of hostages that are with him right now. We are in negotiations with him currently [and] those negotiations are ongoing."
As news of the incident spread, the Discovery Channel sent an e-mail to all employees, urging them to leave the building.
"Don't Return to 1DP (One Discovery Place) Until Further Notice," the e-mail read. "Employees at 1DP should go home for the remainder of the day. No employee should return to 1DP for any reason. Employees with cars at 1DP should not return to the office, but instead use an alternate mode of transportation."
Employees on the scene told AOL News they were escorted out of the building by Discovery Channel security guards. One worker said there were "snipers on all the surrounding buildings, armored Humvees, SWAT teams, helicopters and ... lots and lots of cops" on the scene.
The hostage drama ended shortly before 5 p.m. when police snipers shot Lee.
Manger said one of the canisters on the suspect's back detonated when police shot him. Police were trying to determine whether backpacks he was carrying also contained explosives.
Lee has a history of protesting outside the Discovery Channel building and was arrested in 2008 for disorderly conduct, TMZ reported. He was also the registered owner of a website, titled savetheplanetprotest.com, that contains a list of demands.
"Stop all shows glorifying human birthing on all your channels and on TLC," reads one of the demands on the site. "Stop Future Weapons shows or replace the dialogue condemning the people behind these developments so that the shows become exposes rather than advertisements of Arms sales and development!"
The website author calls humans "destructive" and "filthy" creatures who are wrecking the planet. The author ends the diatribe with these words: "These are the demands and sayings of Lee."
