UPDATE (2:00 PM PDT): Jim Geraghty of National Review Online tweets, “BREAKING NOW: Suspect shot by police officers, device may have gone off, all three hostages safe.” Mary Katharine Ham of the Weekly Standard adds, “Local police say there are several more suspect packages in the building that they’re checking. He thinks no injuries except gunman.” CNN adds, “Discovery standoff suspect shot, in custody;” which means presumably that he’s still alive.

Update (2:50 PM PDT): Or not. “CBS News confirms James J. Lee is dead,” DC-area CBS affiliate WUSA9 tweets.

Original story follows below, updates added at end of story after jump page.

The Washington Post reports, “A man with an explosive device entered the Discovery Communications building in downtown Silver Spring 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. They confirmed that one shot was 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 email to Discovery employees had a subject line that read: “URGENT: Employees at One Discovery Place Proceed to a Locked Office IMMEDIATELY.”

Tactical and bomb squad officers are on the scene and are developing a plan to deal with the situation, said Montgomery County Police spokesman Cpl. Dan Fritz.

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.

As for the “issues with the Discovery Corporation,”  Allahpundit adds:

WUSA, a local station in D.C., threw a jolt through Twitter by claiming that the guy is a nutjob on an environmental crusade and that this is his manifesto/list of demands. Now they’re saying that that’s unconfirmed. Way to toss a political hot potato into a story that may be completely unrelated, guys.

Here’s what we know, sort of:

ABC affiliate WJLA in Washington, DC is reporting that the gunman is an Asian man and may be a former Discovery employee.

“A man entered the lobby and may have fired a weapon and declared, ‘Nobody is going anywhere,’” Montgomery County police told WJLA. Witnesses said they

Police are trying to establish contact with the suspect. A person inside the building tells The Associated Press the man had something strapped to his chest and has hostages.

It was, apparently, an Asian man who wrote the manifesto, and a cop on the scene says the suspect has “concerns” about the Discovery Channel, but that’s the closest thing to “confirmation” that anyone has that it’s the same guy. I actually don’t care if it is; I’m not going to blame the actions of a nut on all lefties and environmentalists. I will, however, be sure to remind them of this the next time they pull that on the right. Which they do, merrily, at every conceivable opportunity.

Stand by for updates.

Update: NBC says the gunman has been identified as James Lee. “Lee” is the name given at the end of the manifesto. The page appears to be down since it’s getting slammed with traffic, but here’s a taste. It’s basically a long rant about overpopulation and pollution and finding solutions to global warming, etc etc.

The suspect’s “manifesto” is being slammed by a Drudge-lanche, but the cached text is reprinted below, after the page jump, along with a flashback to a 2008 incident in front of the Discovery Channel’s building, which likely involved the same suspect, and additional updates as they come in.

From http://www.savetheplanetprotest.com/

The Discovery Channel MUST broadcast to the world their commitment to save the planet and to do the following IMMEDIATELY:

1. The Discovery Channel and it’s affiliate channels MUST have daily television programs at prime time slots based on Daniel Quinn’s “My Ishmael” pages 207-212 where solutions to save the planet would be done in the same way as the Industrial Revolution was done, by people building on each other’s inventive ideas. Focus must be given on how people can live WITHOUT giving birth to more filthy human children since those new additions continue pollution and are pollution. A game show format contest would be in order. Perhaps also forums of leading scientists who understand and agree with the Malthus-Darwin science and the problem of human overpopulation. Do both. Do all until something WORKS and the natural world starts improving and human civilization building STOPS and is reversed! MAKE IT INTERESTING SO PEOPLE WATCH AND APPLY SOLUTIONS!!!!

2. All programs on Discovery Health-TLC must stop encouraging the birth of any more parasitic human infants 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.

3. All programs promoting War and the technology behind those must cease. There is no sense in advertising weapons of mass-destruction anymore. Instead, talk about ways to disassemble civilization and concentrate the message in finding SOLUTIONS to solving global military mechanized conflict. Again, solutions solutions instead of just repeating the same old wars with newer weapons. Also, keep out the fraudulent peace movements. They are liars and fakes and had no real intention of ending the wars. ALL OF THEM ARE FAKE! On one hand, they claim they want the wars to end, on the other, they are demanding the human population increase. World War II had 2 Billion humans and after that war, the people decided that tripling the population would assure peace. WTF??? STUPIDITY! MORE HUMANS EQUALS MORE WAR!

4. 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. If you think it isn’t, then get hell off the planet! Breathe Oil! It is the moral obligation of everyone living otherwise what good are they??

5. Immigration: Programs must be developed to find solutions to stopping ALL immigration pollution and the anchor baby filth that follows that. Find solutions to stopping it. Call for people in the world to develop solutions to stop it completely and permanently. Find solutions FOR these countries so they stop sending their breeding populations to the US and the world to seek jobs and therefore breed more unwanted pollution babies. FIND SOLUTIONS FOR THEM TO STOP THEIR HUMAN GROWTH AND THE EXPORTATION OF THAT DISGUSTING FILTH! (The first world is feeding the population growth of the Third World and those human families are going to where the food is! They must stop procreating new humans looking for nonexistant jobs!)

6. 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!

7. Develop shows that mention the Malthusian sciences about how food production leads to the overpopulation of the Human race. Talk about Evolution. Talk about Malthus and Darwin until it sinks into the stupid people’s brains until they get it!!

8. Saving the Planet means saving what’s left of the non-human Wildlife by decreasing the Human population. That means stopping the human race from breeding any more disgusting human babies! You’re the media, you can reach enough people. It’s your resposibility because you reach so many minds!!!

9. Develop shows that will correct and dismantle the dangerous US world economy. Find solutions for their disasterous Ponzi-Casino economy before they take the world to another nuclear war.

10. Stop all shows glorifying human birthing on all your channels and on TLC. Stop Future Weapons shows or replace the dialogue condemning the people behind these developments so that the shows become exposes rather than advertisements of Arms sales and development!

11. You’re also going to find solutions for unemployment and housing. All these unemployed people makes me think the US is headed toward more war.

Humans are the most destructive, filthy, pollutive creatures around and are wrecking what’s left of the planet with their false morals and breeding culture.

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!

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. Children represent FUTURE catastrophic pollution whereas their parents are current pollution. NO MORE BABIES! Population growth is a real crisis. Even one child born in the US will use 30 to a thousand times more resources than a Third World child. It’s like a couple are having 30 babies even though it’s just one! If the US goes in this direction maybe other countries will too!

Also, war must be halted. Not because it’s morally wrong, but because of the catastrophic environmental damage modern weapons cause to other creatures. FIND SOLUTIONS JUST LIKE THE BOOK SAYS! Humans are supposed to be inventive. INVENT, DAMN YOU!!

The world needs TV shows that DEVELOP solutions to the problems that humans are causing, not stupify the people into destroying the world. Not encouraging them to breed more environmentally harmful humans.

Saving the environment and the remaning species diversity of the planet is now your mindset. 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.

You MUST KNOW the human population is behind all the pollution and problems in the world, and YET you encourage the exact opposite instead of discouraging human growth and procreation. Surely you MUST ALREADY KNOW this!

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.

Update: Back in 2008, on February 22nd of that year, the Website DCist (which is likely currently slammed with hits; but here’s what’s in the Google cache) reported that a James Jay Lee protested the Discovery channel by throwing money to crowds in front of the cable network’s offices:

James Jay Lee, the man better known only as “Lee”, the organizer of a lengthy protest against The Discovery Channel, has been arrested by Montgomery County police. Lee appears to have spent thousands of dollars in advertising his protest plans in publications such as the Express and hiring homeless people to beef up his presence in front of the cable network’s Silver Spring headquarters.WJLA reported that Lee was arrested yesterday on charges of littering and disorderly conduct. The littering charge may have stemmed from Lee reportedly having literally thrown money at people on the street so that they would gather around his protest site on Georgia Ave.

It’s hard not to suspect at this point that Lee, 40, is at least to some degree mentally disturbed, so we hope this arrest leads to him getting some help. At the very least, it appears as though he has the financial means to take care of his legal troubles.

This is being described as video of the incident:

[youtube _lqk7c5pAGU]

Update: GE-owned MSNBC reports, “Lee said he experienced an ‘‘awakening’ when he watched former Vice President Al Gore’s environmental documentary ‘An Inconvenient Truth.'”

Update: As Allahpundit notes, “Enjoy this tweet from lefty blogger Atrios because, like I say, the narrative shall be a-changin’ the next time some nut on the right does something nutty:”

More at the Verum Serum blog, including Lee’s review of Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth, and Lee’s photo on his My Space page, which Lee captioned, “I am ready to do something.”

UPDATE (2:00 PM PDT): Jim Geraghty of National Review Online tweets, “BREAKING NOW: Suspect shot by police officers, device may have gone off, all three hostages safe.”