SILVER SPRING, MD. —Police shot and killed a man who’d taken two employees and a security officer hostage at the Discovery Channel network’s headquarters Wednesday, officials said. All three hostages escaped safely.
Police spent several hours negotiating with the gunman, who was upset about the network’s programming, after he burst into the suburban Washington building about 1 p.m. waving a handgun and with canisters strapped to his body.
Montgomery County Police Chief Thomas Manger said one explosive device detonated on the gunman’s body when officers shot him.
The 1,900 people who work in the building were able to get out safely.
Police were working to determine whether two boxes and two backpacks the man also had with him were explosives.
Manger said tactical officers had been monitoring the man on building security cameras and moved in when they saw him pull out the handgun and point it at one of the hostages.
A law enforcement official speaking on condition of anonymity said the man had been identified as 43-year-old James J. Lee.
Lee ran a website that was hosted by a Vancouver-area company. RCMP Insp. Tim Shields says the Mounties are aware of the connection and are looking into it. The site
www.savetheplanetprotest.com was hosted by Burnaby's Doteasy.com.
A lengthy posting could be seen where Lee expressed anger against the Discovery Channel and said it promoted overpopulation.
Lee had previously protested outside the building, where he was arrested and charged with disorderly conduct in February 2008, according to court records.
Police reports from 2008 indicate Lee paid homeless people to join his protest and carry signs outside the building. He gave one individual $1,000 for what he considered a prize-winning essay.
At one point, a crowd of more than 100 people gathered around Lee, 43, who referred to money as “just trash” and began throwing fistfuls of it into the air.
At the trial, the Montgomery County Gazette reported that he claimed to be working to save the planet after being laid off from his job in San Diego. He said he was inspired by Ishmael, a novel by environmentalist Daniel Quinn, and by former Al Gore’s documentary An Inconvenient Truth.
A magistrate ordered a doctor’s evaluation, but court records do not immediately indicate the result. Lee was convicted by a jury and served two weeks in jail. He was also ordered to stay 150 metres away from Discovery headquarters.
A lengthy posting that could be seen Wednesday on a website registered to Lee expressed anger against the Discovery Channel and said it promoted overpopulation.
The posting said the network and its affiliates should stop “encouraging the birth of any more parasitic human infants.” Instead, Discovery should air “programs encouraging human sterilization and infertility.
“NO MORE BABIES! Population growth is a real crisis.”
The posting also railed against “programs promoting war” and said solutions should be found for global warming, as well as automotive and factory pollution.
“I want Discovery Communications to broadcast on their channels to the world their new program lineup and I want proof they are doing so. I want the new shows started by asking the public for inventive solution ideas to save the planet and the remaining wildlife on it.”
Discovery Communications Inc. operates cable and satellite networks in the United States, including The Discovery Channel, TLC and Animal Planet, which airs the controversial series Whale Wars, about attempts by environmentalists to disrupt the Japanese whaling industry.
http://www.thestar.com/news/world/article/855436--gunman-in-discovery-headquarters-shot-dead-by-police-report?bn=1