Getting the Photo: A Q&A With Bruce H. Lee

When Bruce H. Lee saw children being pulled across Colesville Road in cribs, he knew that the situation in the Discovery building was serious.

Lee, president of Lee Development Group, is an amateur photographer of sorts whose father had been a professional photographer with Newsweek magazine. Once his 10-story building at 8601 Georgia Ave. was secure in lockdown mode on Wednesday afternoon, Lee went to the roof to see what he could see.

He took along his Canon Rebel and two zoom lenses, at first to use the equipment almost as a pair of binoculars. Lee shared many of his shots with Patch for our coverage of the event. On Wednesday night, he answered a few questions for us about how he got his shots.

Patch: Why did you go up to the roof?

Bruce H. Lee: We're on the highest hill in downtown Silver Spring. Because the police were setting up, it was clear to me that they were surrounding the building and cutting off the entrances. The best vantage point was to go to the top of our building.

My first instinct was 1) get the building secured and 2) get to the best vantage point and communicate with the team. I figured, I've got this camera with me today, so I could use it to see into windows and anything else.

Patch: Why did you have your camera with you today?

B.L.: The reason was that we are having our Fillmore Live Nation groundbreaking [Thursday], and we were setting up for it. We were putting up signs and banners [Wednesday], so I wanted to document things [Wednesday]. So I brought my camera in, which I haven't done in a long time.

Patch: What were you thinking when you saw the children crossing the road?

B.L.: It was happening very, very quickly. As soon as I saw the baby carriages going across Colesville Road, that was a clear indication that it was very serious inside the building. I immediately zoomed in and was able to catch a couple of frames.

When I saw the SWAT teams and bomb specialists and more police officers in downtown Silver Spring than in all the years that I have been here, I knew it was something serious.

Patch: What time did you leave the area?

B.L.: I didn't leave the building until 20 after 7. The building was empty at that point. [The tenants, and his employees had been able to leave around 4:45 p.m., with permission from the police.]

They were allowing pedestrians to move at that point, but making sure they were staying very far away from Discovery. As soon as you turned your body toward Discovery, the police were there to tell you to go the other way. There was clearly concern about suspicious packages or something. It appeared that they were concerned that he had left packages behind.

An earlier version of this story incorrectly gave the name of the magazine where Lee's father worked. We regret the error.