Man shot after taking hostages at Discovery Communications HQ

01 September, 2010
RBR.com

Police shot and killed a man Wednesday afternoon nearly four hours after he took hostages on the first floor of the headquarters of Discovery Communications in Silver Spring, MD, just outside Washington, DC. None of the hostages were hurt.

James Lee was no stranger to Discovery Communications. He had previously been under a court order to stay away from the company's headquarters following his arrest at a 2008 demonstration which he organized.

WUSA-TV (CBS) Washington, DC interviewed two men who knew Lee from the homeless shelter where he once lived. They said he was a friendly guy, but passionate about animal rights and environmental causes. At some point, the formerly penniless and homeless man somehow came into money and began paying homeless people to join his protests. He was arrested at the 2008 demonstration and charged with, among other things, “littering” for throwing money on the sidewalk to attract the attention of passersby to his protest.

On a website , Lee had posted a manifesto railing against human overpopulation and for preserving animal species. “The humans? The planet does not need humans,” he said. Rather, he said, “Saving the environment and the remaning [sic] species diversity of the planet is now your mindset. Nothing is more important than saving them. The Lions, Tigers, Giraffes, Elephants, Froggies, Turtles, Apes, Raccoons, Beetles, Ants, Sharks, Bears, and, of course, the Squirrels.”

While Discovery Channel might seem to most people like the most pro-ecology television channel in existence, Lee condemned it for not doing more to advance animal rights and for wasting airtime on other types of programming.

Lee demanded that Discovery institute his new programming lineup “based on Daniel Quinn's ‘My Ishmael' pages 207-212 where solutions to save the planet would be done in the same way as the Industrial Revolution was done, by people building on each other's inventive ideas.” The book is a novel about a telepathic gorilla who is critical of human culture. “Focus must be given on how people can live WITHOUT giving birth to more filthy human children since those new additions continue pollution and are pollution,” Lee wrote. “A game show format contest would be in order.”

According to Montgomery County Police Chief Tom Manger, Lee entered the Discovery Communications headquarters building about 1:00 pm Wednesday and began waving a handgun. He had canisters strapped to his body which police treated as potential explosive devices.

As Lee held three Discovery staffers hostage on the first floor, the company notified other employees to move to higher floors. Then security officers led them out of the building. In all, some 1,900 people work at the facility, which is headquarters for several cable TV channels. A daycare center on the first floor was also safely evacuated.

According to the chief, police negotiators were in contact with Lee by telephone for hours, trying to bring the hostage taking to a conclusion. However, at 4:48 pm police opened fire on Lee when he pointed his handgun at a hostage who had become fidgety and appeared ready to flee. There was reportedly some sort of pop from a device strapped to his body, but none of the three hostages were harmed.