Was the Discovery Channel Eco-Terrorist Homeless? Does it Matter?

Yesterday morning, the world knew almost nothing about James Jay Lee, the man who took over the Discovery Channel's office building in Silver Spring, Maryland and held three people hostage while insisting that the station abide by his bizarre manifesto advocating human sterilization, among other things. Since the media got a hold of his name, though, reporters have understandably been on a quest to find out everything they can about the man, who was shot dead by police in the afternoon. Among reports of his previous protests, his MySpace page and his estranged family was this nugget: Lee used a homeless services center as his address.

So was he homeless? It's not clear yet. Though he had spent time at the Interfaith Works center, used its address as his own and two years ago signed up for meal services, employees there yesterday distanced themselves from Lee. In a statement, the center said Lee had not utilized any services "in the recent past or present."

He had, however, utilized the homeless themselves. In a one-man protest outside the Discovery Channel in 2008, Lee reportedly paid homeless people to stand with him. Other reports have him throwing money into the air to get people to gather around picking it up off the ground.

What is clear is that Lee was deeply disturbed — and that mental illness can be both a cause and an effect of homelessness. When Lee was arrested outside the Discovery Channel in 2008, he was sentenced to serve time in a mental institution. As is often the case when things like this happen, missed opportunities are noticed only in hindsight. Lee never went to a mental institution. Instead he spent two weeks in jail and was ordered to stay away from the Discovery Channel for two years. (Which he did. The hostage situation came weeks after the restraining order expired.) His brother-in-law yesterday described him as "erratic," "unstable," "disagreeable," and "talented, bright but incredibly misguided." It's impossible to know whether a stay in an institution would have prevented yesterday's events, but it sure would have been worth the effort, don't you think?

One can only hope that these details about Lee's life don't make him the bad apple that ruins the whole batch. As we've discussed before, a very small percentage of the homeless (as with the general public) pose a threat, yet when a crime is committed by a homeless person, it calls the entire community into question. When a former shelter resident killed a shelter director with an ax in Cleveland earlier this year, the city responded by cracking down on shelter safety and using metal detectors. Did it make anyone safer? Probably not. Similarly, a previously unknown homeless encampment in Virginia came under public scrutiny when one of its residents committed murder in May. These criminals, like Lee, should be punished. But the people who are forced to live around them because they have no where else to go shouldn't be.

Photo credit: John