Media & Advertising
(Updates first three paragraphs with news of end of hostage standoff)
SILVER SPRING, Md. -(Dow Jones)- Police shot and apprehended a man strapped with explosives inside the Discovery Communications inc.(DISCA, DISCB) headquarters building, and three people who had been held hostage are safe, authorities said Wednesday.
Police shot the man about 4:48 p.m. EDT and an explosive device on him detonated, said Montgomery County Police Chief Thomas Manger. he said he couldn’t disclose the suspect’s condition, including whether he was alive. but he said the suspect was in custody.
the shooting marked a dramatic end to a nearly three-hour standoff that began shortly after the man walked into the building strapped with a vest full of explosives and waving a handgun.
Multiple law-enforcement sources identified the suspect as 43-year-old James Jay Lee. Officials said the suspect, who had “concerns” with Discovery, entered the building’s lobby about 1 p.m. EDT, waved a handgun and told employees to “stay still.”
Lee maintained an anti-Discovery Channel website and MySpace page where the phrase under his photo is “I am ready to do something.”
the man was wearing a vest with “metallic canisters” in the front and back, said Manger. the man held a small number of hostages on the first floor while police negotiated with him, Manger said. he couldn’t provide details on the man’s demands.
Montgomery County police worked with various law enforcement agencies to resolve the situation, said Capt. Paul Sparks of the county police. Police attempted to get the man to surrender peacefully, he said.
About 1,900 people work in the building, located in a business district just north of Washington, D.C.
Police were investigating an unconfirmed report of one shot fired in the incident, Manger said.
Earlier, a police spokesman said the man’s “concerns are with the Discovery Corporation right now,” but he didn’t elaborate. Police evacuated the area surrounding the building.
Mildred Ugay, a research strategist for Discovery, said she was at her fourth-floor desk when an alarm sounded. She said employees initially thought it was a fire drill, but they shortly received a work email that explained a gunman was in the building.
She and coworkers went into an office, closed the door and turned on a TV to watch reports of the incident, Ugay said. a law enforcement official eventually told them to go to a higher floor, which they did. About 45 minutes later, they were told to leave the building.
Colleagues reported seeing SWAT team members in the building, she said.
“A lot of them (employees) were concerned because there’s a day care in the building,” Ugay said. they learned that the children were safe at a McDonald’s across the street, she said.
Court records and Mr. Lee’s own writings on the Internet reveal a troubled man obsessed with the channel, one who made shrill demands for very different kinds of programs. he was arrested in 2008 after a protest outside the building in which he threw cash into the air to attract a crowd.
in a web page encouraging people to come to the protest, he wrote: “The Discovery Channel produces a lot of shows about saving the planet that all have one thing in common: they don’t work. why don’t they have real shows about saving the planet? Have you ever noticed the crap they have on their network about just about everything else but that?”
in a more recent posting, Mr. Lee issued 11 demands to “save the planet” by stopping people from having babies, or as he put it “more filthy human children.”
all Discovery programs, he argued should stop encouraging “the birth of any more parasitic human infants.”
Copyright © 2010 Dow Jones Newswires
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