Guard dies after Holocaust museum shooting

[Miss Mia]

Guard dies after Holocaust museum shooting
Authorities say they're investigating a white supremacist as the suspect


Police push back crowds outside the Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C., after a shooting on Wednesday.

WASHINGTON - An elderly gunman opened fire with a rifle inside the crowded U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum on Wednesday, fatally wounding a security guard before being shot. Authorities said they were investigating a white supremacist as the suspect.

The assailant and his victim were both hospitalized, said Washington, D.C., Mayor Adrian Fenty, who added that the gunman was in critical condition. The guard, identified by the museum as Officer Stephen Tyrone Johns, died later in the hospital. Johns had worked at the museum for six years.

"There are no words to express our grief and shock over today's events," the museum said in statement.

D.C. Police Chief Cathy Lanier said the gunman appeared to have acted alone. He was "engaged by security guards immediately after entering the door" with a rifle, she said. "The second he stepped into the building he began firing."

One law enforcement official said James Von Brunn, 88, a white supremacist, was under investigation in the shooting, and a second official said the elderly man's car was found near the museum and tested for explosives. They spoke on condition of anonymity, saying they were not authorized to discuss the investigation.

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[Miss Mia]

Anti-Semite is museum shooting suspect
James Von Brunn is described by authorities as a white supremacist

WASHINGTON - A law enforcement official said Thursday that James Von Brunn, an elderly white supremacist, is being investigated as the prime suspect in the shooting at the U.S. Holocaust Museum.

Another law enforcement official said Von Brunn's vehicle was found near the museum and was tested for explosives.

The two officials were not authorized to discuss the investigation and spoke on condition that they remain anonymous.

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A Web site dedicated to denial of the Holocaust and white-supremacist writings includes extensive writings by a man of the same name, who says he is an artist and author. The author boasts of his exploits in the 1981 cThe Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith, which monitors anti-Semitic causes, said the author, whom it identified as John Wennecke Brunn, was a “long time white supremacist and anti-Semite who often uses the name James von Brunn.”

It said Brunn was World War II veteran who was retired from the Naval Reserve officer and formerly worked in advertising. The PT Boat Museum in Germantown, Tenn., told NBC News that James Von Brunn served as commanding officer of a PT boat during World War II.

The U.S. Park Police says the gunman in Wednesday's attack walked into the museum with a "long gun." The gunman and a security guard were shot. A law enforcement source said the gunman was shot in the face, and authorities say he is in critical condition.ase, calling the Fed “treasonous,” and rails at length against Jews, the standard history of the Holocaust, African-Americans and “the browning of America.”

The site promotes a book, “Tob Shebbe Goyim Harog!” — which he says translates as “Kill the Best Gentiles!” The book blames Jews, Marxists and “Negroes,” among others, for “the millions of Aryan crosses covering the world’s battlefields.”