Listen to tape of MoCo officers preparing to move on James J. Lee

Watch the video and hear the SWAT team members talk to each other as they prepare to move in on the hostage taker. And read some of the transcript below the video.

During much of the frightening ordeal, unbeknownst to the gunman, a Montgomery County SWAT team was inside the building, around the corner from Lee.

Comment

Long story short

"I see a red light flashing on something around his waist."

retweet

"There is a wall between me and him," an officer reports. "I have, visual via the camera system, of the suspect. I see a red light flashing on something around his waist."

Eventually they moved in with deadly force.

James Lee had not one, but two guns in the lobby of the Discovery Channel building. The non-firing starter pistols were not a serious threat, but police say the explosive devices he was carrying could have been deadly.

And in addition to the explosive devices found and safely disrupted at the Discovery building last night by the bomb squad, law enforcement today found even more dangerous materials inside a Wheaton home where Lee had been living.

Neighbors were warned to take their children to a safe location while police searched the home and disrupted the other homemade bombs.

Some of the most dramatic moments of the tape:

16:34:06 "we've got a man inside with a vest strapped on him and some kind of device in his hand." 16:34:10

16:34:38 we have visual contact of the subject, he's in the lobby facing Wayne and Georgia. We've got visual contact with him. 34:50

16:35:26 I want every officer in the district down here now. (cuts out)

16:35:45 it looks like he's trying to affix something to one of the security guards in the lobby. 16:35:50

16:45:00 you take the garden, you see some people by a stairway and some employees flagging you down. They'll walk you into the lobby or you can enter right off of colesville. Either way you walking into the lobby around to me I am directly behind the suspect.

16:45:17 there is a wall between me and him.

16:45:20 I have visual via the camera system, of the suspect. I see a red light flashing on something around his waist. 16:45:27

16:47:21 like a mini backpack with two canisters on the outside and looks like a propane bottle on the inside. Looks like two coffee cans surrounded by a propane canister flashing light in his left hand holding with a death grip. Same thing on the front. 16:47:44

No comments