Discovery hostage disaster: All 3 hostages freed, gunman shot dead by police

Police officers shot and killed a gunman who had been holding three hostages on Wednesday afternoon inside the headquarters of the Discovery Channel in Silver Spring, Maryland. The nearly four-hour ordeal ended with the suspect in custody and all three hostages appearing to escape unharmed, Maryland police said.

"All the hostages got out safely, I don't believe that there is any injuries," the Montgomery County police chief, J Thomas Manger, told reporters at a 5 pm briefing near the building. "The suspect is deceased." The police said the man had been wearing explosive devices. When asked why the police officers shot him, he responded: "Based on the information we had, we believed that the hostages' life were in danger."

Chief Manger described the suspect as displaying a "wide range of emotions" for the several hours of negotiations. Police said the suspect had "a history" with Discovery Communications. A Discovery spokesman, David Leavy, identified the gunman as James Jay Lee. A website owned by Mr Lee, SaveThePlanetProtest.com, was established in January 2008, according to domain name records, and it asserts that Discovery's programming was hurting the environment rather than helping. Chief Manger said that the suspect had been arrested a couple of years ago demonstrating outside the building.

Police said the suspect had entered the building at 1 pm wearing silver canisters police believed to be explosives. "He also pulled a handgun out and was waving a handgun," the chief said. "The man told everyone to just 'stay still.' " Even though the hostages were safe, as of 5 pm, police and fire officials were still considering the situation ongoing because of danger to the building.

"There are other suspected devices in the building that have not been rendered safe," Chief Manger said. In early August the home page of the site was listed as being "under construction." Sometime since then, it was put back online with a list of demands. The author of the website called for Discovery to show programs about how to save the planet by decreasing the human population.