Police respond to hostage case at Discovery headquarters in Silver Spring
A man with an explosive device entered the Discovery Communications building in downtown Silver Spring on Wednesday afternoon and has taken a security guard hostage, Montgomery County Police said.
Police responded after receiving a 911 call about 1 p.m. of shots fired in the lobby. Police said they do not have confirmation that any shots were fired. Police said they have no reports of injuries.
Some employees were evacuated. Others told to go to the highest floor in the building. An e-mail to Discovery employees had the subject line: "URGENT: Employees at One Discovery Place Proceed to a Locked Office IMMEDIATELY."
Tactical and bomb squad officers were on the scene and developing a plan for the situation, Montgomery County Police spokesman Dan Fritz said.
Friz said the suspect was an Asian male who has some issues with the Discovery Corporation. He did not elaborate.
"We're working on getting everyone out of there," he said on WUSA-TV.
He said authorities "have an eye on the individual" and are keeping him under close observation. Police said they have made contact with the suspect.
Several businesses near the building were evacuated or on lockdown.
In an interview, one employee who was evacuated from the building said that they were told a gunman had come into lobby, and grabbed a security guard as a hostage.
As police descended on Silver Spring, the downtown came to a halt as police cordoned off streets. The Discovery building, in the heart of downtown at Colesville Road and Georgia Avenue, is at the center of the city's revitalization and employs hundreds.
A note posted online July 18 issues a list of demands to the Discovery Channel, saying the station "MUST broadcast to the world their commitment to save the planet." It lists 11 demands about airing shows that would promote curbing the plant's population growth, finding solutions for global warming and dismantling "the dangerous US world economy."
"All programs on Discovery Health-TLC must stop encouraging the birth of any more parasitic human infants and the false heroics behind those actions," it reads. "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."
The manifesto was published on savetheplanetprotest.com. The site is registered to James Lee, who gave a post office box in Canada as his address. There is no confirmation from authorities that the Web site has anything to do with the current situation at Discovery.
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