Too Much Excitement at Discovery Yesterday
The good news: no one at Discovery's Silver Springs HQ was physically hurt ... though police shot and killed suspect James Jay (or Jae) Lee
rescuing the 3 hostages held since just after 1 pm EDT. An explosive
device was detonated and smoked as the suspect was shot, but there were
no reports of damages or other devices at press time.
Kudos to the coverage by cable nets (MSNBC-FOX News-CNN)
and the local TV stations ... all were quickly on the scene. The
suspect had a history of protesting and harassing at Discovery and had
served 6-months of probation in '08 after he was arrested for littering
(he threw money in the air but was acquitted of littering).
The building had been evacuated, including the Discovery Kids Place day care center.
Besides the mainstream coverage, Twitter
turned into a constant stream of short stories as employees tweeted
relatives and friends; watchers in adjacent or nearby offices and
restaurants across from Discovery HQ also tweeted updates almost
continuously. Internet news sites jumped into gear tracking down the
suspect's MySpace postings, old rantings at savetheplanetprotest.com, old booking photos, YouTube video of the earlier protests at Discovery and more. The only trade bulletins were our Morning BRIDGE bulletins and TV Newscheck.•
|
|
