Discovery Channel Hostage Situation: Police Negotiating, Multiple Hostages in Building

By: Carlin DeGuerin Miller
Topics: Daily Blotter

Gunman Entered Discovery Building In Md. (CBS)

SILVER SPRING, Md. (CBS/AP) The man - reported to be James Lee - who is holding a unknown number of people hostage in the Discovery Channel building in Silver Spring, Md. is currently talking with hostage negotiators, according to Montgomery County Police Chief Thomas Manger.

Manger did not say what the man wants or whether anyone has been injured. When asked about eyewitness accounts of four hostages laying on the lobby floor, Manger said he could not confirm the number of hostages or whether there were any injuries, but did say that there are people in the same room as the hostage taker.

Most of the 1,900 people who work in the building were able to get out safely, as well as all of the children who were in the company's daycare facility located on the ground floor of the building. According to CBS affiliate WUSA, some employees may still be inside, trapped in their offices.

Manger also confirmed that Lee appears to be wearing a vest with metallic cylinders that looked like two pipe bombs and canisters, but he did not confirm whether they were in fact bombs.

"To my knowledge, we're assuming and we're going on the assumption that they could be explosive devices," Manger told reporters at a press conference Thursday. "That's the only way we can proceed."

According to a website said to be run by Lee, he is upset with the Discovery Channel's programming which does not include enough educational shows about the environment or endangered species. According to the website Lee wants the channel to "Focus...on how people can live WITHOUT giving birth to more filthy human children."

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