James Jay Lee – A disturbed environmental activist named James Jay Lee stormed the Discovery Channel’s headquarters carrying a handgun and bombs, holding three people hostage for hours until he was shot and killed by police.
James Jay Lee
James Jay Lee entered the building around 1 p.m. and appeared to have a bomb strapped to his chest, police said.
After hours of negotiations, the Montgomery County Police Department SWAT team set off smoke bombs, allowing sharp-shooters to take the deranged gunman down. All the hostages escaped safely.
Montgomery County Police Chief J. Thomas Manger said an explosive device may have detonated, and the suspect may have brought other devices into the building.
The suspect was identified by Discovery Communications as James Jay Lee of San Diego, Calif., a man well-known to the building’s employees because of his history of protesting the network.
Manger said the gunman had been wearing “what appeared to be metallic canister devices” when he entered the building.
“The man told everyone to just stay still,” Manger said.
Lee is believed to have distributed a manifesto outside the Discovery building several weeks ago that called on the network to “broadcast to the world their commitment to save the planet.”
“All programs on Discovery Health-TLC must stop encouraging the birth of any more parasitic human infants and the false heroics behind those actions,” the list of demands read.
“In those programs’ places, programs encouraging human sterilization and infertility must be pushed. All former pro-birth programs must now push in the direction of stopping human birth, not encouraging it.”
Some witnesses reported that the man fired a shot before declaring, “Nobody is going anywhere,” police said.
Employees at the Discovery Channel building were told to take cover in locked offices, according to local press accounts.
A company e-mail sent to employees reportedly said: “Don’t Return to 1DP Until Further Notice…No employee should return to 1DP for any reason.”
Manger said most of the 1,900 people who work in the building were able to get out safely while the hostage standoff was unfolding.
Witnesses from a building across the street told Fox News that authorities rushed four stretchers into the building.
Police sources have reportedly said that Lee previously protested outside the building, where he was arrested and charged with disorderly conduct back in February 2008.
Police reports indicate he 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 his trial, Lee reportedly said he began 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 Vice President Al Gore’s documentary “An Inconvenient Truth.”
Thomas Leonard, Lee’s brother-in-law, told reporters that Lee became a “darker type of character” after some deaths in the family and said he believed Lee was capable of killing.
Leonard described Lee as “talented but misguided” and said his “spirit took a nose-dive” in recent months.
“He’s been very hurtful to loved ones who have tried to help him over the years,” Leonard said.
And that’s the latest from Action News about the Discovery Channel hostage shooting involving James Jay Lee.
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