Update 17:37 01/10/10 - Reports indicate that police have shot and killed James Lee, and released the hostages.
SILVER SPRING, Maryland, September 1, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Chaos erupted after at least one hostage was taken at the Silver Spring headquarters of the Discovery Channel by what appears to be a crazed radical environmentalist.
The armed man has reportedly demanded that Discovery Channel executives run programming geared toward stopping the propagation of "parasitic human infants" in order to save the planet from global warming and pollution.
In a document apparently authored by James J. Lee, identified by law enforcement as the gunman, Lee expresses his intention to force the network to discourage overpopulation and the "human filth" of new children, particularly among immigrant populations.
Discovery Channel employees first noticed Lee in February 2008, when he was arrested during a protest at the Discovery building. For his involvement in that protest he served two weeks in jail.
Lee, a San Diego resident according to some reports, has said he experienced an ‘‘awakening” when he watched former Vice President Al Gore’s environmental documentary ‘‘An Inconvenient Truth," reports MSNBC.
Police Wednesday afternoon were engaged in negotiating the release of what has been reported to be as little as one and as many as three hostages by Lee, who was seen with a possible explosive device strapped to himself. No injuries have yet been reported.
A list of demands published on savetheplanetprotest.com, signed as "the demands and sayings of Lee," seeks programming from the TV station showing "how people can live WITHOUT giving birth to more filthy human children since those new additions continue pollution and are pollution."
"Saving the Planet means saving what's left of the non-human Wildlife," it states. "That means stopping the human race from breeding any more disgusting human babies! ... It is the responsiblity of everyone to preserve the planet they live on by not breeding any more children who will continue their filthy practices."
The manifesto emphasizes that immigrant populations and their "anchor baby filth" must also be stopped, and that Darwin's theory of evolution and the Malthusian theory of overpopulation must be reiterated "until it sinks into the stupid people's brains until they get it."
In addition, the document insists that the channel must "stop all shows glorifying human birthing" and "the false heroics behind those actions."
"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," it says, adding that civilization and "all its disgusting religious-cultural roots and greed" "must be exposed for the filth it is."
