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Hostage Situation in Silver Spring, Maryland
Aired September 01, 2010 - 14:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
ALI VELSHI, CNN ANCHOR: OK. I want to bring you back to the situation that we have been following very closely in Silver Spring, Maryland, just outside of Washington, D.C.
There is a hostage situation under way. That is the Discovery Channel headquarters that you're looking at in Washington, the discovery building.
Now, here's what we know. There is a man holding one hostage. He appears to be armed. Police say they have got a very good visual of him.
He appears to have a revolver, and he has what they described earlier as a suspicious device on him. That device, they think, are tanks that are on his body somehow.
He's wearing a green shirt. He's got a silver revolver. He's described as short.
There are explosive teams, there are SWAT teams on the site. There are explosive teams on the site. And what we don't know is whether they have actual verbal connection with this hostage-taker.
They do know that they can see him very clearly. That's what they've told us.
Now, they have ordered an evacuation of the building. Again, we know that he has one person with him. We don't know whether there are any more hostages. We also don't know whether there are people still in the offices in that building who were not able to observe the evacuation order because they felt endangered.
We don't know where in the building he is. So what we know is what you know right now, that the building has been evacuated, or at least ordered evacuated.
We are -- we want to just go to the phone right now. We've got somebody who is -- Michelle Forman is with me. She is on the phone. Michelle is across the street.
Michelle, are you there?
MICHELLE FORMAN, ACROSS THE STREET FROM DISCOVERY BUILDING: Yes, I'm here.
VELSHI: You're in a building across the road? FORMAN: Yes, I'm with the Association of Public Health Laboratories, and our offices are on the seventh floor in the building immediately across the street.
VELSHI: OK, immediately across the street. Do you know which direction so we can see what we're talking about here?
FORMAN: I guess we face them on Georgia Avenue. So I guess we're --
VELSHI: OK. So I believe that's on the right side of the screen.
FORMAN: Yes.
VELSHI: OK. Tell us what you can see from where you are.
FORMAN: The streets are closed off in every direction. A few minutes ago, they expanded the closure by about a block in both directions on Georgia Avenue that I can see.
There are heavily armed police officers surrounding the building, police cars. I see an armored vehicle, and there are several K-9 units. A few minutes ago we saw them take the canines into the building.
VELSHI: Did you see people evacuating that building? Do you see streams of people coming out of the building?
FORMAN: No, we have not seen anybody evacuate the building. However, the people have definitely -- they've moved them somewhere.
When we started watching this about 40 minutes ago, there were people in Discovery that we could see looking out their office windows just as we were. And they're no longer there.
VELSHI: From where you are, you can see the building, you can see into offices around your level. You're on the seventh floor.
Do you see anybody in that building?
FORMAN: No. No, not anymore. And we did. We did.
Those windows were filled with people just as ours are watching the situation. And they are not there any longer.
VELSHI: Now, you haven't been evacuated from your building?
FORMAN: We haven't, although we did hear from building management that it was a possibility and they were watching the situation. But we have not received a call that we needed to evacuate yet.
VELSHI: Have you been given a call that you should be locking yourselves in offices or anything of that nature?
FORMAN: No. No, nothing like that.
They contacted our office manager to just kind of give them the situation and what they were hearing, and asked her just to keep her cell phone on in the event that we did need to evacuate. But we have not been told -- given any instructions to evacuate or move to another area of the building or anything like that.
VELSHI: OK. We understand the police have a visual of this man who may be holding somebody hostage and may have some kind of a device on him. Does it appear obvious to you from what you can see that police are concentrating on a particular part of the building? Are they looking anywhere? Do you see anything that looks like activity?
FORMAN: I can only see two corners of the building. And there are definitely police concentrated at the main entrance, which is at Georgia Avenue and Wayne.
VELSHI: Right.
FORMAN: And that is certainly where there are more police officers. The officers have had their hands on their guns the entire time, several guns drawn and focused on that main lobby of the building, which is all windows.
So I cannot see -- I can just barely see into that lobby. I don't see anything. But if there's somebody in that lobby, then the officers on this end should absolutely be able to see him.
VELSHI: And you see what appear to be SWAT teams or emergency service units, something like that?
FORMAN: Yes, several. Initially it was police, we started seeing SWAT, what appeared to be FBI, several unmarked cars. And there is a large armored vehicle at one end.
VELSHI: OK. So we're looking at one corner of the building there, and there appears to be a circle or a park or something in front of that. Is that the area in front of the lobby?
FORMAN: Yes. That's the main area. That's the area of the building that is closest to where I am.
VELSHI: OK. And that's -- because we are hearing from a Montgomery County police officer that the hostage-taker is in the lobby of that building. So that would be that area that is just on our screen above that circular area at the bottom of the screen.
He appears to have an explosive -- well, this is what the police are saying. He has a device on him, and it appears to be -- they think it's an explosive device. They are monitoring the suspect on closed circuit TV. That's how they have the visual of him as clearly as they do. And the fire marshal is responding because they are the folks who have expertise on explosives and they can identify the device.
Now, here's what we also know. He's not fired any weapons as far as they know. But the initial call that came in to police was that shots were fired. So we don't know what that's about either.
Again, police are basing the information we're getting on what they are seeing on surveillance. It does not appear that they have direct contact with him.
But it does appear, Michelle, that he is in the lobby of that building. You said that's all glass enclosed?
FORMAN: Yes, the main lobby of Discovery, it's windows. You know, as you walk by, you can see all the many things from their programming and it's a very nice building. So that is all glass enclosed. If you were on street level and walking past there, you would be able to say anyone who was in that space.
VELSHI: And does it look to you that that's what's going on, there are police converged around that area? See, on our screen, the picture that we're getting from WJLA, that part of the building, because of the time of day, is completely in shadow.
So we can see the building there, but you can't see what's going on at the base of the building. We see cars moving around there a little bit. I assume these are all police cars that you're seeing?
FORMAN: Yes, all police cars. There are several unmarked cars, but, yes, all police cars.
And just from where I can see, there are six police officers positioned immediately outside of this lobby area. Several others, of course, at other -- at the other end of the building and kind of positioned behind some of the police cars.
VELSHI: Is that an area that normally has people walking around, or is this the kind of thing where it's offices and you drive in and you go into your garage and go to your office?
FORMAN: No, this is a -- it's generally a ton of pedestrian traffic. There's a large pedestrian mall immediately across the street with lots of shops and restaurants and things. Particularly during the business day, this area is just buzzing with people. So it is -- and with traffic. Georgia Avenue is a main road into --
VELSHI: OK. Michelle, I'm just going to interrupt you just to give you the basics that we know about the situation for viewers who are joining us.
You're looking at the Discovery Channel headquarters. This is in Silver Spring, Maryland.
What we understand from police is that there's a hostage situation under way. One man, apparently. The police have visuals of him in the lobby of the Discovery building.
He appears to have a device on him. Police say that the device appears to be tanks, and that he is armed. They seem to see a revolver. They're looking at him on closed circuit TV. And fire marshal experts in explosives have been called in to try and help identify the device.
As far as we know, no shots have been fired. But there was an initial call that came in to police that said that shots were fired, and they're trying to get a handle on whether there's anybody else around and what the explosive that he's got on him might actually be.
That's the Discovery building in Silver Spring, Maryland. This is right outside of Washington, D.C.
And Michelle, stay with us. We obviously are monitoring this situation very closely.
Michelle is across the road in a building, and she's monitoring it for us, along with us.
We're going to take a quick break. We will continue to monitor this, and we will come back if anything changes. But we'll be back on the other side of this break with more information.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
VELSHI: And we're following very closely developments here. Take a look at what we've got on the screen, an aerial photo from WJLA, our affiliate in Washington, D.C.
This is Silver Spring, Maryland, a suburb of Washington, D.C. That building that you're looking at in the middle, the L-shaped building that has satellite dishes on the top, the white-framed windows, that is the Discovery, the headquarters of Discovery Channel and its related channels, One Discovery Place in Silver Spring, Maryland.
Here's what we know. There is a hostage situation under way in there. There's one suspect, and police have seen one suspect with that person.
The building has been evacuated, or so they hope. Police say they've got good visual contact with the suspect. No verbal contact, as far as we know, but they can see him because he appears to be in the lobby of the building. That's what we have received from Corpora. Dan Fritz (ph) of the Montgomery County Police Department.
He appears to have something on him which they have described as a suspicious device. And the best information we have from police is that there appear to be tanks on him.
As a result, they are monitoring him using the building's closed circuit security TV system. And fire marshals are responding to the scene, they're on site now, I would imagine. And the fire marshals there are the explosive experts, so they are trying to determine what that device is, whether it's explosive or not. We don't know that it is an explosive device, but they do seem to think that they are tanks. Now, as far as police know, he's not fired any weapons, but we have heard that he appears to have a revolver on him. An initial call that came in was that shots were fired. So this is where we stand. That's everything we know at the moment.
I've got Michelle Forman on the phone. She is across the street in a building on the seventh floor, has a better vantage point of this than we do from here.
Michelle, any developments since we last spoke?
FORMAN: Not really. Every now and then, the officers will shift or move, but there has been -- we haven't seen actual change.
VELSHI: OK.
Aaron Cohen, are you on the phone? Aaron? OK.
Aaron Cohen, are you there? OK.
I'm going to ask my control room to see if we can find Aaron Cohen. He is somebody who has worked on counterterrorism. He can give us some sense of what police are probably doing right now to try and deal with this.
This is a densely-populated suburb of Washington, D.C., Silver Spring, Maryland. Anybody in the D.C. area will know it very well. You'll know this building very well.
It's a densely-populated suburb, and it's a -- as you can see from the buildings around there, mostly office buildings. And police have evacuated the Discovery Channel headquarters, which is the one we're looking at right now. Apparently, they have not evacuated buildings in the vicinity, but streets have been closed off, access to the roads in the neighborhood have been closed off.
Maybe we can get a different shot of this by going to the newsroom. Josh is there. Josh Levs is there.
Josh, what are you finding out on this?
JOSH LEVS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Ali. I'll talk you through a little bit.
First of all, we do have this aerial shot. And what I've also opened behind me here -- I think our camera can zoom in a little bit -- I've opened it on Google Earth.
And one reason I want you to do that is any time that you see a situation like this in which there could be a hostage situation, a potential gunman inside the building, authorities immediately look not only at activity in that building, if this person maybe had some relationship to the building, but, also, they look immediately at surrounding area. Was there some sort of illegal activity, some sort of dangerous activity in the area around there? So what we do expect to see, and certainly can believe it's happening right now, is that authorities are looking into that entire area.
Let's zoom in if we can with this camera. I want everyone to get a general sense of this part of Silver Spring, Maryland.
Big picture, you've got it north of Washington, D.C. I'll just tell you as we're on the map here.
So, Silver Spring is up here. Washington, D.C., is down here. So you're working your way north as you're getting into this area where Discovery Communications has its building here.
And using Google Earth, I'm able to just kind of go like this and take you around the area. And what you can see, it's a busy area, a lot of major buildings in this section. Also, there is a lot of activity. Certainly at this time on a weekday, you would have a lot of activity.
And also, another thing to note about this building, as you can tell, very big, a lot of potential entrances, a lot that goes on in this building. So as we look around this entire area, what we can understand is that authorities are certainly taking a look at the whole big picture right now.
They're taking a look at not only what's going on in this building, but certainly checking about whether there have been other problems in that area. Now, obviously everyone hopes it's all confined to one person, and certainly people would be informed if there were any other problems.
But authorities certainly look at that entire area and see, is there someone that left one building, went into another building? Is there a relationship to this?
We can also assume, Ali, and you know from seeing situations like this before, that what they do start to look at is any potential clue at all. Given a good visual of this person, they're certainly trying to find out everything they possibly can about this person, if this person has had any kind of relationship to what has gone on, ever been there, ever worked inside, familiar with some parts of the building or not.
So They're gathering all of that while also taking a look at the big picture right here. And that's what we're watching right now. What clues do they pick up about what might have led to this happening, this building right here -- Ali.
VELSHI: Josh, thanks for staying on top of it for us.
LEVS: You got it.
VELSHI: Three streets on either side of that building, as you can see. Those streets have been closed off. That's the actual aerial picture of what you were just seeing that Josh had.
We also understand there is a daycare in the building, but the daycare has been successfully evacuated and the children have been taken off site.
Aaron Cohen, are you on the phone with me now? Aaron Cohen?
AARON COHEN, FMR. ISRAELI DEFENSE COUNTERTERRORISM COMMANDO: Yes, I'm here. Can you hear me?
VELSHI: Yes. Hi, Aaron.
You're the former Israeli Defense Force member. You are trained in dealing with things like this.
What do you think -- tell us what we think is happening right now. We understand that this man is armed. He probably has a pistol on him, according to police. He's got something that appears to be on his body, tanks, is what we've been told.
They're watching him on closed circuit TV. Apparently -- we haven't got an update on it, but apparently they can see him. They've got him in on the system, and they're using that to determine what that is that might be on him, what those tanks might be.
So knowing all that, what do you make of this situation?
COHEN: Well, you know hostage situations aren't uncommon in Israel. And now me and my associates here, we train SWAT teams in the U.S. for these kind of situations.
And in this type of hostage situation, the first thing the command is trying to do, or hopefully they're doing, is trying to slow down the process, slow down this situation, and try and engage in some type of dialogue with the hostage-taker for two reasons. One is to be able to figure out exactly what his demands are, to see if they're realistic and if they can be met. More often than not, the point is not to really get the demands met as much as it is to slow down the situation to try and extend this as long as possible, to try and tire out the situation and tire out the individual, while simultaneously doing the second tier of a proper tactical operation, which is to position that tag team and primarily sharpshooters to be able to look through those lenses to see exactly where this guy is inside of the building and get some type of visual intelligence, which is then fed back to that command post, which is probably set up within proximity to that Discovery building, where leadership and management is taking that information and then deciding what they're going to do next, which is either continue to slow things down to get him to come out, or do what's called a forced entry, which is where that tac unit, in fact their shooting does begin, which is a possibility.
We have heard that the subject is armed. And then force that SWAT team to have to go into that building, which is what they don't want to do. But that's what these teams train for.
VELSHI: This is obviously complicated a little bit by the fact that they say that there's a suspicious device on him that may be tanks.
Here's what we think they've seen -- a revolver and something that appears to be tanks. The revolver seems to be an easy thing to overcome. These tanks present a different problem.
COHEN: The tanks, whether or not they're real explosives, is not the immediate concern. They're treated as if they're lethal.
Whether or not they are lethal, again, is not the concern. They are treated as if they are lethal. So they're given the highest red flag priority by the command and by that tac unit.
By no means, does any tac unit want to go in and face an explosive. The tricky part here is that not only is this gentleman armed, but with this hostage, time becomes very critical.
If the explosive goes off and it is, in fact, a real explosive, then obviously the consequences could be deadly. And any tac team really at that point has -- basically has to switch to its secondary objective, which is sweeping the building for additional threats.
If the explosive goes off, there's nothing that tac team can do. So, if potentially -- you know, as far as that goes, you're very limited as to what your options are, unless you're talking about getting those sharpshooters, which, again, is very, very tricky.
I can't see exactly what the proximity from that hostage-taker to the hostage is, but I'm sure it's probably pretty close. Again, the option with this SWAT team is to try and slow this situation down and tire this guy, and get him to come out, and not have to go into that building.
But if they do have to go in, if they do perform what's called dynamic entry, which is where small, highly-trained special weapons and tactics units -- let me make this very clear to your viewers. These teams have more training over the years than we have ever. They're highly dialed in since Columbine, and hours and hours are spent behind those weapons and training in these dynamic situations with selectivity in their shooting and functioning under stress.
And Maryland, by no means, is any less trained than any other big city. They're a fantastic unit.
And if they do have to go in, which is, again, the worst case scenario, then they will go in hard and they'll have to go in fast. And they'll have to get to that guy very quickly for the purpose of reducing risk to not only that hostage, but to the team as well, if that hostage-taker is, in fact, wearing explosives.
VELSHI: Let me ask you this, Aaron. You seemed to emphasize that the best case scenario is to get in touch with this guy.
We do not know that they've got verbal contact with him. We know that they've got visual contact, which I guess is a very, very big plus in this instance, to have visual contact on a closed circuit TV.
But do these people normally get worn down? I mean, is that the best outcome in these situations? And how successful is that usually?
COHEN: Well, to answer your question fairly without beating around the bush, with terrorism, no, wearing down is not typically the outcome. In fact, with terrorists specifically, the situation involves buying enough time to be able to position a very highly- trained, full-time tac team, to have enough time to be able to get into all those little secret hiding spots and then make what's unconventional entry, which is where they come through windows and air ducts in 360 degrees.
In this case, you could have an individual who's a disgruntled employee, or just somebody who hasn't taken his meds. And in those cases, less than lethal options are obviously more plausible.
Unfortunately, we don't know what's going on in terms of the communication. I don't want to give away any safeguards pertaining to how the SWAT teams communicate, but let's just say something like a cell phone can be used to thrown into the room, and hopefully over a period of time somebody who's professionally trained and being very cool and talking very calmly can get on the phone with this guy and find out what his deal is, and just try to get him to come out.
And it sounds to me like they're in this holding pattern, which hopefully is the situation. And it also sounds like to me like the emergency plans for that surrounding area have been affected accordingly, which is getting everybody out of that area. And that's the number one thing.
VELSHI: Right. And let me tell you what we know about that. Thank you for bringing that up. Let me tell you what we know.
Right now, you're looking at the Discovery building, the Discovery Channel headquarters in Silver Spring, Maryland. The roads around it have all been closed. We understand that that building has been evacuated.
There is somebody in that building with a weapon and something on them that police think might be a tank or tanks, and he apparently has one hostage. That's what we're looking at right now. We believe that hostage to be in the lobby.
Aaron, let me ask you this -- you said you don't want to give anything away. I don't think we would be giving anything away if we said that it is almost always at the interest of the authorities to make -- to establish contact with the hostage-taker.
Would you agree?
COHEN: Absolutely. It's important to establish that communication with the hostage-taker so that you can find out exactly what he wants.
In that process, it buys you time and it allows the management and the decision-makers and the leadership of that police department to slow down the process, to cool this guy out, chill him out, for lack of a better term, and be able to continue to get what we call eyes on or some type of visual connection with the hostage-taker. And that's typically done via snipers or sharpshooters looking through high-powered lenses, and it enables them to, again, slow things down, but feed that information back -- these guys want to know exactly what's on him.
They want to know where he's standing in the room. They want to know exactly how many pieces of furniture are in the room. They want to know where he is in relation to the civilian hostage. And they want to know if there's other gunmen as well. And if there are, where are they positioned, what type of weapons they're carrying.
And SWAT teams typically train for the worst-case scenario. I mean, look, they don't want to go into this situation with their weapons and have to flush this guy out. But if they have to, they will, and that's what they're trained to do.
And so that tac unit is working very closely with those sharpshooters and with that command team. And everybody's having a nice, close look at this situation. And hopefully, like I said, they'll be able to keep this thing nice and calm and come to some type of resolution, which is really the goal of that law enforcement agency or with any good agency. And that's probably what they're trying to do.
VELSHI: And at the moment, what we know is that -- we haven't seen any developments on the ground. Everything, as you said, does seem to have been put into a holding pattern.
This business about tanks on the back, this is information that was given to a news organization by somebody who came out of the building. What do you make of that, Aaron, tanks?
COHEN: Well, I make two things. Either it's somebody who's trying to make it seem like he has an explosive, or it's somebody who does have an explosive and is trained in improvised explosive devices, which is what this tank would seem like. Either that, or he's using the tank as some type of oxygen respirator in order to breathe oxygen in the event the building is burned down. But that seems unlikely.
And he's certainly not going on a scuba expedition --
VELSHI: OK. Aaron, let me just interrupt you for a second.
Let's go to the press conference where we can get some more information on this.
(JOINED IN PROGRESS)
CORP. DAN FRITZ (ph), MONTGOMERY COUNTY POLICE: Well, right now, it's still very fluid.
QUESTION: What about employees in the building? I've talked to some employees who were told to take cover, to lock themselves into offices, and then they were told they could leave the building.
Do you have most of the employees out or are there still some employees in there?
FRITZ: I don't know about how many employees are still there and how many have been out of the building. QUESTION: Does this man have hostages?
FRITZ: I don't know that.
QUESTION: Is he still in the lobby of the building?
FRITZ: We're speaking with him now. He's in the building.
QUESTION: Is he in a known place to you?
FRITZ: That's something I'm not able to confirm.
QUESTION: Is he an employee there? Who is this guy?
FRITZ: Can't confirm his name. He's an Asian male. And his concerns are with the Discovery Corporation right now.
QUESTION: Were any shots fired?
FRITZ: We have an unconfirmed report of one. I haven't confirmed that yet.
QUESTION: Any injuries at all?
QUESTION: I understand there's also some other suspicious bags around him. What can you tell us about that?
FRITZ: There may be some other potential devices with him or near him that he brought in, but again, none of this is confirmed.
QUESTION: Have there been any injuries?
QUESTION: Is this a bomb attached to his body?
FRITZ: When I say an explosive device, a potential or possible, yes, that's a bomb.
QUESTION: That's what it looks like to you?
FRITZ: Well, that's what some people are saying it could be, yes.
QUESTION: Has he indicated that he would hurt himself or anyone else?
FRITZ: I'm not going to be able to get into that kind of detail right now.
QUESTION: Did he used to work for Discovery?
FRITZ: I don't know anything about his history. And that's all I want to say right now. I wanted to give you some information. And then we can confer off camera in a few minutes.
Thank you. VELSHI: That's Corporal Dan Fritz (ph) of the Montgomery County Police. Here's what he's told us. And if Aaron is still with me, I want to get his evaluation on what we just heard.
He said that they are speaking with him, so not only -- well, we thought they had only visual contact. They are speaking with the hostage-taker, described as an Asian male who has got some issue with the Discovery Corporation. That is Discovery Channel's headquarters in Silver Spring, Maryland. They have unconfirmed reports of one shot fired. That may have been the shot that was fired that caused somebody to call the police. And they say that he may have other potential devices around him. They do believe that the device is an explosive.
Aaron, new information, a lot more information that we were talking about a few moments ago. Number one to me is the fact that they are talking to him.
COHEN: Yes, there's a couple of things that I noted from Mark Brashear (ph) briefly are that dialogue is active. Let me tip my hat quickly to law enforcement officials who are handling this case. They are keeping their cards very close to their chest with the media, which is very important.
Let me explain why. Intelligence and information is something that has to be very carefully safeguarded while situation is active to avoid allowing the subject who, from what I understand, has some type of beef with the Discovery Channel. It seems like he could have potentially been some type of disgruntled employee or contractor. The fact that the authorities are being very limited about what they're discussing right now is for intelligence and operational purposes.
VELSHI: Aaron, hang on one second for me. I think Brianna Keilar now -- CNN's Brianna Keilar --is on the scene. Are you there, Brianna?
BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Ali, I'm here about a block away from the Discovery Building. And I tried to get a little closer, but police have set up a perimeter and they're turning people away for obvious safety reasons if you do get close.
I'm standing in a crowd of people. Some of them are actually Discovery employees who went through the evacuation. And they're now outside the building. And they say they really don't know what's going on. There have been a number of rumors.
Actually have one employee, Ali, if you want to talk to her. She was in the building and evacuated.
VELSHI: Yes.
KEILAR: There's someone from Discovery coming out and telling them, please, they should be -- some of them should be going home. I don't know what's happened. But let me put you on the phone. This is Lori Rorae and she evacuated. Here she is
VELSHI: Thanks, Brianna. Lori, are you there?
LORI RORKE, EVACUATED DISCOVERY EMPLOYEE: Yes, I am. Hi.
VELSHI: You work in that building?
RORKE: Yes, I do.
VELSHI: OK. Tell me what happened.
RORKE: Well, everything is just rumors at this point. But from what we understand, there is a gunman in the lobby, and he has explosives taped to his chest. So, they have just successfully evacuated the building. And everything else is rumor right now.
VELSHI: Okay. What do you see around you? You're about a block away from the building.
RORKE: That's correct.
VELSHI: As far as you know, are all your colleagues out?
RORKE: As far as I know, yes, everyone is out. I do believe that there are hostages. But I think they are members of the security staff. Again, this is all rumor. But I know all of my coworkers, who I work with on a daily basis, as far as I know, are out.
VELSHI: OK. So, you have heard rumors that it may be more than one hostage and that it is possibly members of the security staff in the building?
RORKE: That's correct.
VELSHI: OK. How did you learn about this?
RORKE: Well, we had one of the security staffers -- I'm on the second floor. So, I'm actually fairly close to the lobby. When he was coming upstairs telling us that we need to leave the building, I asked him what was going on. And he said that two of his colleagues were being held as hostages. So.
VELSHI: He said two of his colleagues. We weren't able to get that confirmed by the police. You got out of the building. You didn't go through the lobby, I assume?
RORKE: That's correct. They kept us as far from the lobby as possible. They kept us near the garage.
VELSHI: What have they told you to do at this point?
RORKE: From what I understand, a coworker of mine has a BlackBerry, just read on e-mail that all employees are actually required to leave, and if their cars are still in the building -- most of us were unable to get to our cars. And it's also unsafe in case we were to get trapped in the building. So, we're just asked to take alternate means of transportation home.
VELSHI: They don't want you going back to the building until they figure out exactly what the danger is?
RORKE: That's correct. That's correct, from what I understand.
VELSHI: I assume you have not been in this situation before?
RORKE: That's correct, never.
VELSHI: What's the mood around there with your colleagues? Was it panic, was it orderly? How did it all go down?
RORKE: It was a little bit of both. When we first heard the news, we heard that the gunman was mobile and that we were told to go into locked offices. So, there was a lot of panic there, especially as news started to come out that he had explosives taped to his chest. So, we were really panicking then trying to keep it under control.
And then there was a loudspeaker announcement that said we should go to the stairwells. That's when we were told by people to evacuate the building.
VELSHI: Did everybody just -- sorry. Go ahead, Lori.
RORKE: I was just going to say, we were initially told to go to the higher floors in the building. I'm not sure what the reasons were for that. Maybe that was in case there was a detonation or something, we would be considered safer higher up. But I'm really not sure. And then they eventually told us to leave the building.
VELSHI: Did everybody just coordinate their own way out, or were there marshals -- how did you all figure out how to get out?
RORKE: We had people with us who had BlackBerrys. There were -- I do recall a P.A. announcement. I don't know if that happened frequently. There were always just seemed to be people around us who knew what to do and were up on the most recent updates, telling us where to go. I mean, it was orderly. It was orderly.
VELSHI: And you have no reason -- there's nothing that you know of that would make somebody want to do this, right? You don't come up against this a lot in your line of work?
RORKE: That's correct. This is the first time that I have ever encountered anything like this. I had heard rumors that the person who is the person with the explosives taped to his chest is someone who's mentally unstable. And I know last year he organized some sort of a (INAUDIBLE) against Discovery and he paid homeless people to carry signs. And I've heard rumors that it's the same person. I don't know if they're actors (ph) or not.
VELSHI: OK. Well, we don't have much information, as these cases often go. There's a lot sort of flying around which we don't have yet from the police. But we're trying to get as much information as possible.
You're looking at the Discovery building in Silver Spring, Maryland. Right now, right outside of Washington, D.C., there's a hostage situation in there.
Lori, thank you very much for the information that you've brought us today. I want to just check with Kelly. Do we have Sabina on the phone, Kelly?
OK, we're working on somebody else whose husband was in the building, and she's been in communication with him. But we do believe -- as far as we know, the police were not able to confirm that there's anybody else in that building or tell us that everybody's out of the building. We do know that the building was evacuated. What we just heard from Lori, who works in the building was that she and other workers got an e-mail. They had people who were sort of in touch with them, and she saw everybody getting out of the building or at least she saw people getting out of the building. Unable to confirm whether everybody is out of the building. But they were not taken through the lobby.
And -- hang on one second. OK, We are just getting word in from our affiliate, WJLA, the people who are - OK --- they have now taken some stretchers inside. One stretcher is inside -- has gone inside the building. That's what we know. We know the police are in touch with the hostage-taker, and one stretcher has now gone inside the building.
Kelly, do we know who's gone in with that stretcher? OK, that's the information. We are getting information in a very piecemeal fashion here about the hostage taking at the Discovery building in Silver Spring, Maryland. We know that as people evacuated the building, they were not allowed to go through the lobby. They went through -- they came out different exits.
Josh Levs was just telling us about how it's a big building. There are several exits you can go through. Not everybody was able to get to the garage or get their car out. It's an area that a lot of people use to get to work in their car. They have been informed by Discovery that if the car is still in the garage, leave it. Go home, find another way home, get out of there. Do not come back until the situation is cleared up.
Part of the problem here is that police are investigating that there is -- that the hostage-taker has an explosive device or more than one explosive device on him. We don't know what that is. One eyewitness said that it looked like he had tanks on him. Police did not confirm what that -- what the explosives were, but that the fire marshal's office, which has the explosive detection unit is looking into it. They have visuals of this hostage-taker, this man. They believe he is somebody who has a grievance of some sort with Discovery Corporation.
They also think one shot may have been fired, but not since the police have been called. This may have been the originating shot that got police to get there. An eyewitness also says he has a revolver, a silver revolver. Police did confirm that they suspect there is a bomb involved in this.
Josh Levs, we've been looking at this picture from WJLA, this helicopter circling the campus of Discovery Channel. You've got an image of it there. Tell me what you've got.
JOSH LEVS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I do. I tell you what. Let's stay on the pictures we're looking at right here. I have it as well behind me. This is a map of the area, basically. Shows you a lot of the same surrounding buildings. Just shows you what a busy section of Maryland it is of Silver Spring, Maryland, which is just north of Washington, D.C. It's a suburb for some people. But it is a busy city in and of itself, and this is one of the major buildings there.
So, clearly it's having an impact on the entire area. We've been hearing about streets that were shut down as a result of this.
Let's go back to the live pictures. What I want to do now talk you through some of the details that we've been getting here as CNN. Some of our latest reporting about the situation there. I'm going to start off by mentioning that we were just hearing, from WJLA reporting about a stretcher going in.
Let's not jump to conclusions about that. It's possible there was somebody who was running down a staircase and bumped an arm. Anything could happen. We're in a case right now --
VELSHI: That's a good point, Josh.
LEVS: I don't want to suggest someone was shot because of that.
VELSHI: I was on with Aaron Cohen a few minutes ago, who's trained in S.W.A.T. teams and he also said, look, one of the things that has to be done here, one of the things the police are trying to do is just calm the whole thing down and slow it down. And that -- it's so -- we hear rumors very quickly. We have to make sure we don't make assumptions. I think that's a very, very distinct point.
We saw a stretcher go into the building --
LEVS: That's all we know.
VELSHI: That's right. That's all we know.
LEVS: And there have been plenty of hostage situations -- I've covered them with you -- where a stretcher has gone in and no one was shot. So, we're going to go one piece at a time.
Now, you'll be happy to hear this. I can tell you that the children from the day care center, which is inside Discovery Channel have, indeed - I know, we thought we had this earlier. We have confirmed they have been evacuated and are sheltered at a nearby building. All the children who were in that day care center, safely taken out, according to police. They are safe.
We also know something that happened with an e-mail earlier from Discovery Channel, and the exact wording of that. That they said the company had reason to believe there is an armed gunman at 1 Discovery Place. At the time, they said all employees should take cover in a locked office on their respective floors immediately. And we have been hearing stories about people doing that; in some cases, contacting loved ones or others from the offices in which they were, obviously hoping no one is giving specific details about where they are in that building. Keep yourself safe and obviously doing everything authorities are telling you to do. They have control here.
Something else I can tell you about, we're getting some information here -- you know this. (INAUDIBLE) Jenkins, who works across from Discovery Channel headquarters, more of the details we're getting in right now, describing seeing the mobilization of a bomb squad and a large armored vehicle that was pulling a trailer.
Again, that is something that would happen in a situation like this, especially given what authorities have been saying is reported to be in that building, given that they don't know - we, out here, who aren't the authorities, don't know exactly what this apparent gunman has with him, if it could be some kind of explosive device. It absolutely makes sense that they are mobilizing that squad there as well.
And other details you've been sharing with us, Ali. I'll just catch us up. We do know that police received the call about 1:00 p.m. Eastern time. That would be 10:00 a.m. Pacific time, of a man with a gun and the possible explosives, according to police. That's the timeframe from when this call first came in from 1 Discovery Pace, which is the channel's headquarters. Discovery Channel, obviously being the parent company of a lot of channels that are out there, not just the Discovery Network.
And we are going to keep getting little bits of information, piece by piece. And we do look forward to sharing those with you when we have them confirmed -- when it's time, when it's safe and that includes any information about this gunman.
Given what we heard in the brief news conference just about communication and a visual, we certainly have reason to believe that authorities are making progress and are potentially in a position at this point to begin the conversation, as we were hearing from police a bit and also our guest Aaron Cohen. The possibility of having conversations that might lead to the next step in this case. That is where things stand right now. Ali.
VELSHI: All right. We're looking at pictures -- this is tape of people coming out of the building and those children from the day care being relocated. We understand the children are all out of the day care. I should tell you, though, we don't know for sure anything. The police officer did not say for sure that everybody is out of that building. He did not say for sure that there's anybody in the building. We know there's a hostage-taker and there's a hostage.
Now, is Aaron Cohen still on the phone? Have we got Aaron?
COHEN: I'm here.
VELSHI: Aaron, I want to go down a list with you because you and I talked before we knew much information. Then we got a little more information directly from the police, who as you said are being very cautious. That means the information I think we got from them can be trusted.
I think this story has become better as we started following it because we know that they are talking to this gunman. Number two, we know that he appears to have some issue with -- they say he's got some issue with the Discovery Corporation. Does that make it better for you or worse for you that you know that there's a motive -- or there may be a motive?
COHEN: Well, from a tactical perspective, the fact that -- that this isn't a, isn't anyone outside of the disgruntled range is a good thing. It means you have a specific person who went to a specific place who's angry and yes, he's armed and yes, he has an explosive. But what we don't have an active shooter. And that's huge for law enforcement. What we don't have is a guy who went to a building and just opened fire.
What we have is a building that's been cleared out. There may potentially be people inside. Like you said, as we piece together the information, regardless of how close law enforcement is keeping quiet about the immediate intelligence or information for the purposes of being able to protect the operation, we can still draw color and try and bring out all the things we know could be happening. For instance, the fact that I overheard something about a bomb squad. The bomb squad is a typical call-out when you have a potential explosive device. That means that they should be equipped to deal with that --
VELSHI: Right. So, a bomb squad doesn't mean there's a bomb, and a stretcher doesn't mean there's somebody injured?
COHEN: No. But what it means is all the layering is in place to be able to deploy those methods as needed, which means that the city is properly, you know, trained and equipped to be able to handle those situations. As I said, post-9/11, most of these SWAT units and most of these first responders have received equipment and training and funding, which fortunately carries over to situations that don't involve terror. So, the training and the overall ability to be able to respond has been a lot higher in the last seven or eight years.
LEVS: Aaron -- Ali, do you mind if I jump in just a sec, or -
VELSHI: Yes, go ahead, Josh.
LEVS: Aaron, there are a lot of people who are watching right now and are wondering if there's some kind of information out there that people might have that might help authorities in a situation like that. Should authorities -- should people be racking their brains if they've been to that building, if might have some contact with this individual. Or given that police have communication and a visual, are we pretty safe to believe the authorities right now are contacting anyone they need to to get more information on this person?
COHEN: Well, there's a couple of things that go on on a command level with tactics involving a hostage situation. One is when people are evacuating the building, they're typically brought into a sterile area or sterilized area where they can then be lightly interrogated, if you will, for lack of a better term, or debriefed on specifically what they saw. For instance, you had people coming out and speaking to CNN and talking to the audience, you want to make sure that those people who are being brought out of the building who have firsthand information about what happened inside can debrief law enforcement and be able to tell them physically what they saw. That's really important.
Number two, being able to communicate any information regarding that particular subject or suspect who's inside that building, holding the hostage and be able to give them more information pertaining to that individual, which will then lead to on-site investigating, more phone calls, potentially to the family or friends --
LEVS: That's what I'm thinking, the contacts of this person. So, we can believe the authorities have enough information right now between the visual and the communication that they will be contacting the people out there who might have information on this person that might help authorities?
COHEN: Right. They apparently -
(CROSSTALK)
Here's what I will tell you. The authorities are never going to have enough information in this situation. But ideally, they want to try and get in touch with the family or friends or co-workers or somebody who had some kind of relationship to this guy to be able to get as much information on him as possible for the purpose of being able to reduce risk to the situation by slowing it down even further. Absolutely.
VELSHI: Now, Aaron, if they have some information, if they have an identity and maybe they can connect with somebody, they seem to think he's got a grievance with the company. That's what the police told us. When you have that buffet of information in front of you, does it make the job of the negotiators simpler --
COHEN: Absolutely.
VELSHI: Does it mean that there's a more likely outcome of a -- a positive outcome?
COHEN: Well, no. It doesn't mean that the outcome is going to be more positive. It means the chances of reducing the risk to the situation do increase. And the reason why is because if in fact he was an employee, one of the things I would be looking for immediately is this suspect's or subject's information with the company. I would be pulling those files, and I would be getting access to his information to find out all of his particulars so that somebody can be sent to that house right away and begin to have a look at everything they can piece together to try and put together what we call a behavioral profile.
And what that will do is help the management determine if in fact this guy is violent. Now, the fact that he is aggressive and the fact that he may be psychotic and the fact that may not have taken his medication and all these factors doesn't mean that he is going to open fire and start killing people. And that's what law enforcement needs to be careful about. He's still treated as a person, as a human being. But at the same time with a much higher risk level and as a threat.
But they don't want to kill anybody. They don't want to fire their weapons if they can avoid it.
VELSHI: Aaron --
COHEN: And they want to try -- go ahead.
VELSHI: Aaron, stand by for a second. We were just looking at pictures, live pictures of heavily armed police heading into the building. I have on the phone with me Chief Scott Graham of the Montgomery County fire department. I know it's a fire department who is sending in those bomb experts. Chief, tell me what you know.
CHIEF SCOTT GRAHAM, MONTGOMERY COUNTY FIRE DEPARTMENT (via phone): Well, sir, what you're seeing is a contingency of law enforcement officers continuing to assess the situations down here. There's -- it is an active incident.
I will tell you that approximately 1:00 this afternoon at the Discovery Communications building in downtown Silver Spring (AUDIO GAP) Georgia Avenue and Colesville Road, close to the D.C. line, if you're not familiar with the area. An adult Asian male entered the building. We can confirm that he is armed and that he does have some sort of package with him.
The Montgomery County police are in contact with the person at this time. They are speaking with him. There have been unconfirmed reports of a shot fired. That is truly unconfirmed. We have no reports of any injuries at this time.
There is -- this is an active incident. It would be premature to speculate on any exact causes as to why this is occurring. But the police department is speaking with the gentleman actively right now.
VELSHI: OK, that's good news. Chief, is it your department -- is the fire department that's got the bomb experts or the police?
GRAHAM: Montgomery County Fire and Rescue service is the host for the fire and explosive investigation section. However, there's a unified effort here between Montgomery County Police, Montgomery County Fire and our regional partners, including the federal agencies.
VELSHI: All right. We heard from Corporal Dan Fritz of Montgomery Police that the feeling at the moment is that this package with him is a bomb. Do you share that view?
GRAHAM: Well, it would be premature. We have to treat every incident as though it may be. We're still working with the fire and explosive investigators and the Montgomery County police to determine exactly what the package is. (INAUDIBLE))
VELSHI: Chief, I want to ask you, we're getting word in from law enforcement, they have released the name. They believe that the hostage taker is James Lee. Is that information that you have as well, Chief?
GRAHAM: No, sir, we have not released any name.
VELSHI: Okay. Is that building evacuated?
GRAHAM: (INAUDIBLE) - police have left the building. We are working with the building management now to make sure that we have an accurate accountability of the building.
VELSHI: Do you know if there are any employees still in that building who are not hostages?
GRAHAM: At this time, there may be employees in the building, yes, sir.
VELSHI: Do you know how many hostages there are?
GRAHAM: Not at this time. I do not have a confirmed number.
VELSHI: Chief, you have your -- you said there's a unified effort to determine what this package is. We heard from Corporal Fritz there may be more than one package. We heard from an eyewitness that it looked like he had tanks on him. What do you know about that?
GRAHAM: Well, again, it's a situation that we are assessing. We do have our explosives technicians, our bomb technicians looking at every possible situation inside the building (INAUDIBLE). As I said, it wouldn't be prudent to say that there are X amount of packages --
VELSHI: OK, I don't know if I've got Chief Scott there anymore. Kelly, are you there?
OK. OK, Chief Scott, I think we've lost Chief Scott. The police have not released the name of the suspect. You are looking at live pictures right now. We do believe, though, that law enforcement has told us that the suspect is James Lee. And you are seeing -- this is what Chief Scott was just telling me, is that there is a unified command that deals with explosives in Montgomery County. They are the home for it at the fire department. They are treating it as an explosive.
This is somebody who apparently has a grievance with the Discovery Corporation. He is not able to confirm that there are no other hostages or there are no other people in that building. But there is communication ongoing with the man who appears to be -- who is armed and appears to have one hostage. We do know that a stretcher has gone into the building. But we do not know why. We do know that the bomb unit is there, and you are seeing a vehicle that appears to be part of that.
Aaron Cohen is on the phone with me. He has been following this. He -- trained S.W.A.T. teams. He understands all of this very well. We're getting a fair amount of new information on an ongoing basis. Given the new information that we've got, what do you now make of the situation?
COHEN: Well, I think this is a really tough situation, first of all. And the reason why is because there's two operational goals. One is to preserve the life of, obviously, the hostages inside. A new piece of information I heard from the chief just now from Montgomery -- by the way, it's important for everyone to know, this is obviously a joint agency operation, and these counties and cities work very closely together. It seems like this is turning out exactly the way these agencies train for, which is great.
There could be potentially more than one civilian inside the building, or a potential hostage. We don't know. It's treated as if. It's always treated as if.
The explosive, whether or not it's real or not is treated as if it's a hot explosive, or real explosive, which is why we have the explosive (INAUDIBLE) disposal, or the EOD or bomb tech team, which also seemed to be coordinated.
The fact that there's an open dialogue right now with Mr. Lee, or the subject's name, who's now been released, means that things have slowed down, which is a positive. And the fact that we've seen the S.W.A.T. team in place means that the possibility of a potential entry -- tactical entry into the building has been also taken into account.
The stretcher, I've heard a couple of -- of, you know, mentions of it. Could very well be a talented negotiator on the phone - again, these guys are really highly trained. It's important for everyone to know that. They spend hours and days learning how to talk to people and deal with them. And they try to get their finger on the pulse of what's going on with these subjects, when they're disgruntled, for the purpose, again, of slowing down the situation.
A very talented negotiator could very well have negotiated somebody who could be injured some medical attention. That does two things. It builds trust, which is what the negotiator is trying to do. It also allows somebody who's in need of potential medical care the ability to have access to, you know, a medical technician. So, if that's the case, then that's fantastic. It's a positive step, and it's forward momentum. And again, it all ties into buying time.
But based on what the chief said right now, again, I can tell you from my take is that law enforcement is holding cards closely to their chest, and it's for a tactical reason. And it's because they want to limit the amount of information that this subject has access to if in fact there is a television inside the CNN headquarters.
I've been to the CNN building in Los Angeles. There's TVs on everywhere. We've got CNN everywhere. We've got networks on and TV running 24/7 because of our news appetite. So, it's important that they don't give away anything that can be used against law enforcement in this operation.
VELSHI: Aaron, here's a question for you. Part of this is because we're trying to provide a bit of a service -- this is a big building in an urban area. People want to know what's going on. It's always a fine balance between what is a service to people to know and what isn't and what could actually be dangerous. But what we cannot get an answer from anybody on -- and I don't think anybody's being coy with us -- they just may not know. We cannot get confirmation that there are no more civilians in that building.
COHEN: First of all, people absolutely have the right to know what's going on, especially the people who live and work in that neighborhood, and everyone in this country has a right to know what's going on, I agree.
But it's important for the people who want to know, who need that information. Right now, the most important thing is to let law enforcement, let the S.W.A.T. team, let these bomb technicians, let this fire department and this ambulance department, the FBI, whoever else is down there right now -- they need to be quiet and they handle their business. They need to do it very carefully so we can get this guy out alive and we can get the hostage taker out alive. Again, the medical attention he needs. Clearly something wrong with this guy.
VELSHI: Right, right. The preservation of life on all fronts is going to be the paramount here. As you have told us several times over the course of the last hour, the aim of the police now is going to be to calm the situation down and try to talk everybody out of that as opposed to anything else.
What we do know right is there's a man with a hostage, at least one. We don't know if that building have been successfully evacuated.
Aaron, I want you stay on the line, please, because my colleague, Rick Sanchez, is going to take over the coverage from this point in.
And Rick, we have sort of a collection of details. I know you are going to bring our viewers up to speed on it. What we do know now is they've got contact with this hostage-taker. They still think he may have -- there's a possibility that he may have explosives on him. They apparently have visual contact with him. They have some kind of contact with him where they're speaking to him.
And we do not know that everybody is out of that building. We know a stretcher went in. We don't know why. Rick, more questions and answers on this one at the moment.
