September 1, 2010 4:32 PM

James Lee: Who was Alleged Discovery Channel Hostage Taker?

By
Naimah Jabali-Nash
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Daily Blotter

James Lee: Who was Alleged Discovery Channel Hostage Taker?

James Lee's Mug Shot from 2008 Arrest (Montgomery County Police)

NEW YORK (CBS) The suspect in the Discovery Channel hostage situation has been shot and killed by police. It is believed he was a man named James Lee.

PICTURES: James Lee, Hostage Suspect

Who was James Lee?

Lee, a California native, reportedly managed the website savetheplanetprotest.com, which is described on what appears to be his MySpace page as his "idea to save the planet."

The site lists 11 programming demands for the Discovery Channel and its affiliate channels.

Lee apparently accused the Discovery Channel programs of "causing more harm than good," and said, "It's time to bring about new initiatives and try different approaches whether they are conventional or unconventional," in a Save The Planet Protest document dated Feb. 2008.

One of the demands on the Save The Planet website states: "Civilization must be exposed for the filth it is. That, and all its disgusting religious-cultural roots and greed. Broadcast this message until the pollution in the planet is reversed and the human population goes down! This is your obligation."

The website post ends with the author writing, "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. "

"These are the demands and sayings of Lee," the page concludes.

The environmental extremist cited Daniel Quinn's books "Ishmael" and "My Ishmael," which reportedly detail how a telepathic gorilla "talks" about the need to save the planet from humankind.

A banner on the top of what appears to be Lee's MySpace page reads, "It's time for a REVOLUTION!" Among the interests listed on the MySpace page are "politics, world history, religion, all sciences and philosophy."

Lee was arrested in 2008 for disorderly conduct after throwing money into the air in a demonstration to lure a crowd outside Discovery building. He was sentenced to six months probation and fined $500 for the incident, according to the Gazette, a Maryland community online newspaper.

According to the paper, Lee spent nearly two weeks in jail following his arrest and several days under the evaluation of state psychiatrists, he said.

''I told them my idea of saving the planet," the publication quoted Lee. ''They couldn't find anything wrong with me."

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James Lee: Discovery Channel Hostage Suspect

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Add a Comment See all 36 Comments
by awakw September 2, 2010 12:46 PM EDT
All of the Lefties commenting here don't get it. They see nothing wrong with twisting a story or hiding facts to prevent the public from discovering and to continue their agenda of blaming the conservatives and glorifying the liberals. FYI Krick, Gore doesn't give a **** about anyone but Gore. His rant and the "global warming" issue was proved to be false, a scare invented by Michael Mann and a few other agenda driven pseudo-scientists. CO2 is plant food, didn't we all learn that in grade school? Try living in the real world and reading more than one book over and over.
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by philcoop8192 September 2, 2010 12:31 PM EDT
I wonder if he was from San Francisco, since the article says he was a California native. An SF Bay Area radio talk show host, now retired, frequently referred to San Francisco as "the world's largest outdoor lunatic asylum".
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by m_asher September 2, 2010 12:29 PM EDT
Lee specifically said he was "awakened" by Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth", so claiming there's no political connection here is disingenuous. Some of Lee's demands are below; it sounds like the poisonous rhetoric of every Greenpeace activist I've ever talked to:

"Find solutions for Global Warming, Automotive pollution, International Trade, factory pollution, and the whole blasted human economy. Find ways so that people don't build more housing pollution which destroys the environment to make way for more human filth! Find solutions so that people stop breeding as well as stopping using Oil in order to REVERSE Global warming and the destruction of the planet!

For every human born, ACRES of wildlife forests must be turned into farmland in order to feed that new addition over the course of 60 to 100 YEARS of that new human's lifespan! THIS IS AT THE EXPENSE OF THE FOREST CREATURES!!!! All human procreation and farming must cease!

Saving the environment and the remaning species diversity of the planet...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.

The humans? The planet does not need humans."
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by philcoop8192 September 2, 2010 12:26 PM EDT
"'I told them [the psychiatrists] my idea of saving the planet,' the publication quoted Lee. 'They couldn't find anything wrong with me.'"

That proves that shrinks are nuts, too. Stay away from them if you can.
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by rock0223 September 2, 2010 6:08 AM EDT
We are ***programmed*** to keep putting food in our mouths and make babies, in that order. Forget the dream. It's just another day in the maternity ward.

Relax and enjoy your life, while you still have it. Try to find something to like about the way things are.

I worry about people who imagine they are powerful. We live, we die. I mean who's in Grant's tomb, anyway? No matter if it is the Pope, what of it?
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by michaelm07 September 2, 2010 6:00 AM EDT
Wait a minute, you mean this guy wasn't mad about the Obama Healthcare plan, he wasn't an NRA member, he wasn't a Tea Party supporters, He wasn't a registered Republican, etc? How can this be? Bush or Cheney must have made him do it, that is the only logical answer.
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by krick85 September 2, 2010 5:25 AM EDT
holy crap. I've never heard so much conservative whining over something so completely NOT politically motivated in my LIFE! I myself am "conservative" if I had to be labeled something, but this is really just completely absurd.

Ridiculous rants such as all of this anti-Gore, anti-Liberal, anti-planet nonsense is what is currently making the party a laughing stock.

This guy was no one's puppet. He was not the first tree hugger. Gore had nothing to do with this, he just came out with the movie first. This guy was a sick man who had some interesting (albeit warped) ways of changing the world and went about expressing them in the worst possible way.

Shut up and stop making fools of yourselves and the party you represent. I for one am ashamed of you.
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by michaelm07 September 2, 2010 5:58 AM EDT
Please, your 'shock' is a little over the top. "If" you are a conservative you receognize if this guy had ANY connection to the NRA, Tea Party, Republican party, Boy Scouts, militia, a Beck or Limbaugh listener, etc. etc. etc. the press would be all over it. So it is understandable that people point it out when it is a whack job who is left of center, does something like this.
by Cassarit September 2, 2010 3:19 AM EDT
Much as I disagree with the environmentalist cause, I think this fellow may have been onto something. This is the first time in recent memory that an element of the entertainment industry has been targeted directly. Considering the amount of harm that industry has caused this country, targeting them may well be the way to go. In the way of keeping innocents out of danger, I would welcome attacks on media as an alternative to attacks on ordinary people, government workers and the military.
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by Cassarit September 2, 2010 3:12 AM EDT
In a way I suppose it's fitting that this should happen to one of the most environmentalist of the media outlets.
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by wdh3007 September 2, 2010 2:30 AM EDT
He would have made Al Gore proud.
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by philcoop8192 September 2, 2010 12:27 PM EDT
I think Al Gore was living rent-free in James Lee's head.
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