SWAT Team Kills Gunman, Frees Hostages

Update 8:12 p.m.: An armed man troubled by pollution and overpopulation walked into the Discovery Center on Wednesday afternoon wearing a vest with silver canisters demanding the cable company change its programming.

Five hours later, when the tense standoff was over, James J. Lee was dead, killed by the Montgomery County SWAT Team, which was monitoring him through the building's internal television system.

More than 1,000 people work in the building, but three were taken hostage, police said. No one was injured. All of the children in a first-floor day care center were taken to safety, Montgomery County Police Chief J. Thomas Manger said.
Traffic around the heart of Silver Spring was shut down. Police would not let patrons of neighborhood businesses leave.

At 6:30 p.m., firefighters were checking two packages and two backpacks for explosives.

Lee entered the building about 1 p.m., and police received reports that shots were fired. Police then spent at least two hours on the phone with him, trying to free his captives.

"They're talking to him," said Cpl. Dan Friz, also a police spokesman, at around 4 p.m. "They're in communication with him. We can't confirm if he really has explosives on him, but we are treating it as if there are live explosives involved."

Some Discovery employees — no more than 10 — helped with the negotiation, Discovery spokesman David Leavy said.

Police said Lee was convicted of disorderly conduct because of a protest outside the building in 2008. He was to serve two years' probation, during which time he was to stay 500 feet from Discovery. That probation ran out two weeks ago.

Online, Lee had prepared a 1,100-word screed on the evils of humankind, particularly babies, that demanded the Discovery Channel change its programming.

"All programs on Discovery Health-TLC must stop encouraging the birth of any more parasitic human infants and the false heroics behind those actions," he wrote.

A Discovery Center worker said colleagues were locked down in their offices at 1:51 p.m. and then told to evacuate at 1:54 p.m.

"It all happened so fast," another Discovery employee said. She refused to give her name.

At about 3 p.m., the company sent out a directive to employees not to speak to the press.

"With regard to today's emergency situation, all employee [sic] should be compliant with Discovery's Corporate Communications Policy. Employees should not be involved in press interviews of any kind," a company e-mail read.

Using the building's cameras, the SWAT team saw Lee point a gun at a hostage and that was when they pulled the trigger.

Manger said Lee was shot by police at 4:48 p.m. He would not say how many shots were fired. An investigation will be conducted, he said.

Manger also said police saw what they believed to be smoke, leading them to believe that some device had gone off.

He said police then fired the fatal shot.

Contributors to this story include Natalie Neumann and Shaun Courtney.