[Marxism] Black guard killed in white supremacist's attack on Holocaust Museum

["Fred Feldman" <ffeldman@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Gunman Shoots, Kills Guard at U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington,
D.C.

By William Branigin and Debbi Wilgoren
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, June 10, 2009 7:03 PM 



An elderly gunman known to authorities as a white supremacist fatally shot a
private security guard at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in downtown
Washington today before being wounded by guards who returned fire, officials
said. 

The security guard, who was identified by police as 39-year-old Stephen
Tyrone Johns of Temple Hills, Md., and the gunman were both taken to George
Washington University Hospital. 

Johns died at the hospital, authorities said later, and the gunman was
reported to be in critical condition. A third person sustained minor
injuries in the incident, according to police. 

President Obama condemned the shooting, which he said underscored the need
for vigilance against anti-Semitism. 

Museum officials said in a statement that Johns had worked at the museum for
six years. The museum said it would be closed tomorrow, and lower its flags
to half-staff, to honor Johns's memory. "There are no words to express our
grief," the statement said. 

A law enforcement source identified the gunman as James W. von Brunn, 88. On
an anti-Semitic Web site he apparently maintains extolling a "Holy Western
Empire," von Brunn says he served in the U.S. Navy during World War II,
worked for 20 years as an advertising executive and film producer in New
York and then became "an artist and author" living in Maryland. 

A woman who opened the door at von Brunn's apartment, in a neighborhood
outside downtown Annapolis, declined to comment. 

Neighbors, who asked that they not be identified, said that they recently
invited von Brunn to their home for a drink and that he unexpectedly brought
up his belief that the Holocaust did not occur. 

"He didn't believe the Holocaust existed. It was just off the wall," one of
the neighbors said. 

Police recovered a notebook from the gunman that apparently contained a list
of different D.C. locations, law enforcement sources said. D.C. police bomb
squads were called to search and secure those locations after the shooting,
including one in the 1400 block of Pennsylvania Avenue near the White House.


"Everything is getting checked out," a police source said. No other details
on the locations were immediately available. 

The FBI sent members of its National Capital Response Squad, SWAT Team and
Evidence Recovery Team to the Holocaust Museum "to provide on-scene support"
following the shooting. 

"The FBI had no prior knowledge of any act or threat directed at the
Holocaust Museum," Joseph Persichini, assistant director in charge of the
FBI's Washington Field Office, said in a statement. "Preliminary indication
is that this incident involved a lone suspect. At this time, we have no
additional intelligence information to indicate threats to area landmarks
but will monitor the situation closely." 

In a statement issued by the White House, Obama said, "I am shocked and
saddened by today's shooting at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum. This
outrageous act reminds us that we must remain vigilant against anti-Semitism
and prejudice in all its forms. No American institution is more important to
this effort than the Holocaust Museum, and no act of violence will diminish
our determination to honor those who were lost by building a more peaceful
and tolerant world." 

He praised Johns as "a courageous security guard who stood watch at this
place of solemn remembrance" and said his thoughts and prayers are with
Johns's family and friends. 

Last week, Obama visited the Buchenwald concentration camp in Germany, where
an estimated 56,000 people died, and issued a public challenge to "those who
insist the Holocaust never happened." He described the camp as "the ultimate
rebuke to such thoughts, a reminder of our duty to confront those who would
tell lies about our history." 

A day earlier, in a speech in Cairo, Obama said Holocaust denial was
"baseless, ignorant and hateful." 

Sen. Frank R. Lautenberg (D-N.J.), who serves on the board of the museum,
said, "We are horrified by what happened in Washington today. It is
especially shocking that this attack took place at a museum designed to
prevent violence and remind us of the dangers of hatred and bigotry." 

Sgt. David Schlosser, a spokesman for the U.S. Park Police, said the
security guard and the gunman were the only two people hit by gunshots in
the museum shooting. He said the museum has been "completely secured and
evacuated." 

A spokesman for the museum, Andy Hollinger, said in a statement that after
the gunman opened fire, "two Museum security officers returned fire hitting
the assailant." 

Police initially identified the attacker's weapon as a shotgun, but D.C.
Police Chief Cathy L. Lanier later said it appeared to be a rifle. 

The gunman "came into the entrance and immediately opened fire, striking one
security guard," D.C. Mayor Adrian M. Fenty said. "There was gunfire
returned; the gunman was hit." 

Fenty said the gunman is in critical condition. 

The mayor called the shooting "an extremely isolated incident" and said the
security guards "performed exceptionally well and behaved exactly as they
were supposed to." He praised "the heroism of the security guards." 

Lanier said the assailant appeared to be "a lone gunman who entered the
museum and opened fire with what appears to be a rifle at this point." The
assailant's weapon was visible as he entered the museum, she said. 

"Immediately as he entered the front doors of the museum, he raised the
rifle and started shooting," she said. "The second he stepped into the
building, he began firing." 

Police have used bomb-sniffing dogs to sweep the museum and the area around
it as a routine precaution, Lanier said. 

An off-duty D.C. police officer who was nearby responded to the museum
immediately after the shooting, along with U.S. Park Police who were
patrolling in the area, officials said. They helped the wounded guard until
medical crews arrived. 

A spokeswoman for Wackenhut Services Inc., confirmed that the company
provides security for the museum. According to the company's Web site,
Wackenhut is the U.S. government's "largest contractor for professional
security services." 

The company has more than 8,000 employees in the United States and abroad.
In the National Capital Region, it has 1,000 employees and 10 security
contracts. 

In a short biography on his Web site, von Brunn gave his birth year as 1920
and wrote that held a journalism degree from a "mid-Western university." 

He boasted in the Web biography and on a Wikipedia page of an escapade in
which he attempted to take over the Federal Reserve on Dec. 7, 1981, holding
the Board of Governors "under citizens arrest" and charging them with
treason. He was captured, tried and sentenced to 11 years in federal prison.
He blamed a "Negro jury," "Jew/Negro attorneys" and "a Jew judge" for his
conviction. 

Upon his release after serving 6 1/2 years in prison, von Brunn said he
joined Mensa, the society for people who score in the top 2 percent of a
standardized intelligence test. An executive assistant at Mensa, Joy Martin,
confirmed that von Brunn was a member for a year starting April 2, 1987. But
he was dropped from the membership rolls in 1988 for failing to pay dues. 

According to the biography, Von Brunn captained a PT Boat in World War II
and earned "four battle stars." That claim could not be immediately
substantiated. 

The shooting was reported to police at 12:52 p.m., and officers rushed to
the scene just south of Independence Ave. bordering the Mall. 

Scores of police and emergency vehicles converged on the scene, blocking
14th Street, a major artery between downtown Washington and the Virginia
suburbs. 

Police closed the area around the museum. They said they were trying to
reopen 14th Street to traffic as soon as possible. 

One witness, Dave Unruh, of Wichita, Kan., said he was waiting to enter the
museum when he heard one gunshot, then a sequence of four or five gunshots.
He said he then heard someone scream, "Hit the floor!" He and his wife,
Karen, and their two teenage grandchildren dropped to the floor and were
subsequently herded out of the building by authorities. 

Unruh called the experience "intensely, extremely frightening." 

By 1 p.m., the street in front of the museum was blocked by a museum police
officer. A group of schoolchildren was rushed onto a chartered luxury coach
and the bus driver struggled to pull away from the block. 

Kimberly Frank, 44, of Chicago, said she was coming out of the museum with
her 14-year-old son Tyler when "we heard shots, pretty consecutive, within
seconds." 

"We were on the lower level, just getting ready to exit," Frank said. "I was
thinking about what I'd just experienced through the whole memorial. I
wasn't thinking too much of it till I came outside and saw all the people
running around." 

Schlosser, the Park Police spokesman, said an unidentified man walked into
the museum about 12:50 p.m. with a "long gun." The gunman was just outside
the museum's metal detectors when he was confronted by a security guard,
police said. 

After the shooting, a U.S. Park Police SWAT team swarmed into the building
and carried out a search for anyone else who may have been involved,
Schlosser said. He said the gunman apparently acted alone. 

Trevor Ezelo, 18, from Arizona, said: "Basically we were in the propaganda
exhibit, walking around, and all of a sudden we heard five shots. We all
started looking around. We didn't even think it was gunshots. We thought it
was something that fell over. Then a security guard ran in, saying, 'Move
back into the exhibit!'" 

Then, Ezelo said, "some lady ran in crying, and we all knew something was
wrong." 

In a statement e-mailed to museum employees shortly after the shooting,
William Parsons, the museum's chief of staff, said all staff and visitors
were safe. 

"One of our guards was shot and has been taken to the hospital," he said.
"The suspect who committed the shooting was shot by our guards and has been
taken to the hospital." 

He asked employees to remain in their offices until police finished
conducting a sweep of the museum. 

Since it opened nearly two decades ago, the Holocaust museum has become a
top attraction for school groups and tourists from across the nation. Groups
of various races and ethnic backgrounds converge on the striking stone
building daily to tour exhibits that document, in chilling detail, the
extermination of 6 million Jews and millions of other people by Germany's
Nazi regime during World War II. 

The museum also has played an active role in documenting and decrying what
it describes as more recent attempts at genocide, including conflicts in
Darfur and Bosnia. 

Law enforcement officials attend sensitivity training programs there, and
elderly Holocaust survivors have come to the facility -- children and
grandchildren in tow -- for emotional reunions that attest to the failure of
the Nazis to achieve their goal. 

About 400 employees and 300 volunteers work at the museum, which is both
publicly and privately funded. 

A leading U.S. Muslim organization, the Council on American-Islamic
Relations, condemned "this apparent bias-motivated attack" and said it
stands "with the Jewish community and with Americans of all faiths in
repudiating the kind of hatred and intolerance that can lead to such
disturbing incidents." 

Staff writers Keith L. Alexander, Paul Duggan, Michael Birnbaum, John
Wagner, Chris Davenport, Lena H. Sun, Darryl Fears, Michael E. Ruane, Hamil
R. Harris, Marc Fisher, Theola Labbé-DeBose, April Umminger, Clarence
Williams, Allison Klein, Theresa Vargas and Carrie Johnson contributed to
this report. 




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