James J. Lee, the gunman who held three employees of Discovery Communications hostage before he was shot and killed by police Wednesday, had previously targeted the company for airing programs that encouraged “human growth and procreation.” Lee reportedly ran a website called savetheplanetprotest.com, which among other rants, implored the cable giant to “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.”
Lee, who was arrested in 2008 for disorderly conduct for protesting outside of Discovery, went on to address the cable giant by writing, “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.”
TLC offers a wide variety of unscripted, lifestyle programming but their shows about uniquely large families have helped to brand the network as a prime destination for female viewers. Jon and Kate Plus 8 – which has evolved into a series of specials called Kate Plus 8 – are among TLC’s most-watched shows. Besides airing 19 Kids and Counting, Table for 12, and Quints By Surprise, TLC plans to bolster its lineup of shows about large families by premiering Sextuplets Take New York on Sept. 14 and a seven-part series about polygamists called Sister Wives on Sept. 26.
A Discovery spokeswoman declined to comment about Lee, and the company is not releasing the identities of the hostages, all of whom were released unharmed. Discovery has, however, posted a statement on its blog written by employee Jim McNulty, who was held hostage. In the post, McNulty thanks law enforcement officials for securing his and his fellow hostages’ release, as well as Discovery for its support, and says due to the ongoing criminal investigation, he will not be commenting further.
Also: Police shoot and kill Discovery Channel gunman, hostages safe
Too bad Lee’s mother wasn’t as much of a supporter of self-sterilization.
Hahaha. That’s so true. Please EW and all media out there, stop giving this man any coverage. That’s exactly what he wanted.
Does it really matter? – he’s dead
FInally the man was able to fulfill his desire to reduce the population (by one at least). Too bad he couldn’t have taken all his zero population growth buddies with him. All human life is sacred but mostly only to God.
kristen, all human life is sacred? lol then tell me why do we die like animals? ive seen it myself, no difference.. get serious, people are animals, we breed and die like them.
Yes, we also make moral decisions to live against the environment rather than with it. The very fact that we’re destroying out planet it proof enough that we’re NOT ANIMALS.
He had the right idea. If we would all take a hostage whenever we had something important to say, maybe something would get done in this country. Obviously this man’s extreme Christianity told him to make abortions mandatory, and I think we should take up his cause 100%! Make Abortion Mandatory!
Why are you doing this?
Great question.
I like the name
“Obviously this man’s extreme Christianity…” Surely you are joking? If not, you are easily one of the most irresponsible commenters I’ve ever come across.
Well, it’s really Fake Ceballos.
Sad when a person on the path of truth goes nuts and causes such a setback. Good news today! Steven Hawking says god not needed for creation of the universe. All I want to see now is a tax CREDIT for nonbreeding citizens!
WORD. Oh, and in the work place, I want just as much fecking flexability in my scheule as parents. And I want to have equal work loads. You know, not have to work harder to finish something because someone had to leave it to me cause they had to pick up kids, or take them to doctors or whatever.
It’s true that working parent have time constraints, but there is not a single piece of research that indicates working parents are less productive than non-working parents. What makes you more bitter? That no one wants to have a baby with you, or that your co-workers would be glad to have you leave early?
Hey, those kids (the next generation) will be taking care of you when you’re old and paying your social security. If you promise to go die quietly in the woods by yourself and not impose at all on the next generation when you become non-productive, than you have every right to complain.
But as it is we as a society expect to get health care and retirement home care when we get old so it’s expected that it works in the other direction as well. Working parents being allowed to have a more flexible schedule to care for children is just common sense given the service those children will perform for us. If you want parents to stay the whole day than we could move to a French style creche system where government provides child care the whole day, jack up your tax rates accordingly of course. Are you volunteering for a 2-3% income tax hike to take care of other people’s children? If not, than I’d suggest you stfu.
By the way, I have no kids. Nor do I plan to but I’m sensible enough to reject being a grumpy old codger who resents the very people who will one day be cooking my food and giving me my medications when I’m old and decrepit.
It’s tough to share the earth with people who don’t share our ideals and lifestyle.
Fat people are the problem.
Smokers are the problem.
Guns are the problem.
Government is the problem.
Overpopulation is the problem.
Each of us is sitting here sucking air and spending way too much time blaming others.
Your problem is the problem.
@ Chris. Re: non-breeding citizens. Only the intelligent realize the problem. The rest rest continue to breed unabated. Watch Ideocracy. It’s becoming reality, slowly but surely.
John & Kate often make me want to take hostages.
I did learn one thing from this event. That there is a genre of TV programming (very popular from what is said) that is about large families. Parent with a dozen kids, etc and going back of course you have the Brady bunch, The Waltons. But do these shows promote large families?
He was right to protest those programs. Too bad he had to give his life as a soldier for a good cause.
Scary to know there are more mentally insane people out there. Wow.
@Lizzie – is part of your overtaxed, non-parental workload posting on ew.com?
I agree with Mr. Lee. Too bad thinking humans are considered the problem ones.
I agree completely with Lee. Too bad he chose to be a violent dick about it, giving anyone who agrees with him a bad name.
There are too many people on Earth for our own good, and it’s only going to get worse. Hopefully people start to understand this before the wars and starvation force them to.
He certainly had the right idea, but taking hostages really isn’t going to change anything. Overpopulation is exactly what is going to do our planet in, yet nobody wants to admit it.
Is Al Gore going to discourage his other follower from doing similar act?
This fellow’s sentiments and perspective were correct to a considerable extent. Too bad he went berserk trying to make his point.
well thankfully his cause started by getting himself killed. his mission was accomplished! kidding. what the hell was he thinking? destroy the human population for the earth and never breed again. that may have been the most stupid think i heard all week!