The story linked in the OP has just been updated. It seems they know who the hostage taker is.
msnbc.com and NBC News
updated 2 minutes ago
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BREAKING NEWS
SILVER SPRING, Md. — A gunman with a possible explosive device strapped to himself entered the Discovery Communications building in Silver Spring, Md., Wednesday afternoon and was holding an undetermined number of hostages, police said.
Police said they were dealing with an “active hostage situation” at the building but said they would not talk about the nature of the negotiations. No injuries were known, they said, and they would not confirm reports that a shot or shots had been fired.
People on the eighth and ninth floors of the building in the close-in suburb of Washington were safely evacuated, as were children in the Discovery Kids Place day care center, police said, adding that nobody was known to have been injured.
Law enforcement authorities said they were talking to the man, whom they said they believed was James Jay Lee, 43, a longtime protester at the building who was sentenced to six months of supervised probation for disorderly conduct in March 2008.
“The good thing is we have the outside of the building secure, we’re talking with him, and he wants to talk with us,” Montgomery County police Capt. Paul Starks said.
‘The planet does not need humans’
Lee appears to have posted environmental and population-control demands online, saying humans are ruining the planet and that Discovery should develop programs to sound the alarm.
“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,” the alleged manifesto reads, adding:"Nothing is more important than saving ... 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.”
At the time of his conviction in March 2008, Lee was identified as being from San Diego. Court records said he was arrested Feb. 21, 2008, on the sixth day of a protest at the Discovery building. Police were called when a crowd that had gathered began growing “unruly” as Lee threw thousands of dollars of cash into the air, some of it still in shrink-wrapped packages, police said at the time. (Lee was found not guilty of littering.)
Lee said he experienced an ‘‘awakening” when he watched former Vice President Al Gore’s environmental documentary ‘‘An Inconvenient Truth.”
Court records show that Lee moved into a homeless shelter after he was released from jail in March 2008. His movements since then could not immediately be determined.
‘Chaotic’ scene described
Julienne Gage, who works in the building, told msnbc TV that she didn’t hear any shots fired. She described security at the building as including cameras, as well as a receptionist and a security guard at the front entrance.
Roads in the normally busy urban center at the intersection of Colesville Road and Georgia Avenue on the edge of Washington were closed and police cars and emergency vehicles blocked access. Witnesses said SWAT teams and law enforcement from several areas were at the scene.
“It’s pretty chaotic,” Tariq Warner, a photographer for NBC station WRC-TV, said on msnbc. He said a woman ran past him screaming.
Discovery Communications reaches about 1.5 billion subscribers in more than 180 countries with the Discovery Channel, TLC, Animal Planet, Science Channel and Planet Green networks.
