Breaking: Holocaust Museum Shooting, 2-3 hit

[Falkenhayn]

Police: At least 2 shot at Holocaust museum
A person reportedly walked into the museum with a gun and shot a guard
BREAKING NEWS
The Associated Press
updated 1:43 p.m. ET, Wed., June 10, 2009

WASHINGTON - Authorities say at least two people have been shot at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington.

D.C. police spokeswoman Traci Hughes says a person walked into the museum with a gun and shot a guard. Hughes says the shooter was also shot.

Hughes says the victims' conditions were not known. Both were being rushed to a hospital.

U.S. Park Police gave slightly different information, saying three people had been shot.

Fire department spokesman Alan Etter told MSNBC that a third person was hurt after being cut by broken glass.

The museum normally has a heavy security presence with guards positioned both inside and outside the museum. All visitors are required to pass through metal detectors at the entrance, and bags are screened.

The museum, just off the National Mall near the Washington Monument, is a popular tourist attraction. It draws about 1.7 million visitors each year.

Roads surrounding the museum have been closed.

The mother of a Massachusetts teenager says children at the museum heard several gunshots before they were evacuated from the building.

Sandy Perkins says her daughter, Abigail, called her shortly after the shooting.

Abigail told her mother that some of her friends were very shaken, but otherwise were fine.

The teens did not see where the shots were coming from before they were safely evacuated to buses outside the museum.

MSNBC

[Falkenhayn]

Update: Confirmed 2 shot, the Gunman and a Guard.

Same Source.

WASHINGTON - A gunman exchanged fire with security guards inside the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum on Wednesday. One security guard and the gunman were taken to a hospital.

Law enforcement officials identified the suspect as James Wenneker von Brunn, born in 1920, from the Eastern Shore of Maryland, NBC News reported. NBC said he may have had connections to hate groups or anti-government groups.

D.C. police spokeswoman Traci Hughes said the suspect walked into the museum at about 1 p.m. ET with a rifle and shot a guard. U.S. Park Police Sgt. David Schlosser says one or more guards at the museum returned fire, hitting the suspect.

[Shroom Man 777]

Very disturbing (when I got linked to this thread, the tab next to it was 'Reagan Youth' too, of all things). Why a Holocaust Museum, of all places? I mean, if he was part of a hate group, it would be understandable. But anti-government groups?

How often do Holocaust Museums and Jews in general get targeted by hate groups nowadays? Are they blaming the current financial crisis on the Jews again?

[Sea Skimmer]

The people on duty must have been blind or sleeping on the job to let someone get a rifle through the front doors at that place. Security is not exactly lacking. A shooting just outside would be far more understandable. Last time I visited they had two distinct layers of guards outside, and then only let you through the revolving doors one at a time to go right into a metal detector, and I know they spent like 100 million on upgrades since then.

[Lord of the Abyss]

A Washington Post article with some details on him :

Police are confirming that the name of suspect is James Von Brunn, a white supremacist, born 1920.

On a rambling, racist and bitterly anti-semitic website a man who identifies himself as James W. von Brunn claims to be a former World War II PT boat captain who was decorated for his conduct in battle, and was an advertising executive and film producer in New York City.

He claims to be a member of Mensa, "the high-IQ society," and in 1981 was convicted in D.C. Superior Court for an offense that is not made clear. He was "convicted by a Negro jury, Jew/Negro attorneys, and sentenced to prison for eleven years by a Jew judge. A Jew/Negro/White Court of Appeals denied his appeal. He served 6.5 years in federal prison."

He says he is now an artist and author living on Maryland's Eastern Shore.
He refers on his website to "Marxist/Liberal/Jews bankers," and provides this information in a poisonous biographical entry.

"Over my years of adversity, it became clear to me that a JEW strategy had emerged: "Kill the Best Gentiles!" The tactics were WAR & DEBT...I was chased from one job to another for not genuflecting before God's Chosen. When a Jew CEO deliberately farts in a business meeting, to express his contempt, I seem to react unfavorably."

[The Romulan Republic]

Born in 1920? While the quoted article doesn't come out and say it, between the last name, the age, his racist views, and the claim of serving in WW2, it sounds like this man was probably an original Nazi. Its disturbing to think that their are a few of them still out there who are capable of continuing to perpetuate violence, and at the Holocaust Museum of all places.

I have to ask though, while it seems that terroristic attacks by white supremacists and extreme right wingers are more common these days, how likely is it that this particular guy decided to act on his beliefs at least in part because of senility or some other age-related factor?

[Mr Bean]

I'm going to go out on a limb and guess this guy just got a medical death sentence of some kind and/or self diagnosed himself as going to die soon so he went off on this shoot spree.

[FSTargetDrone]

Until we get confirmations, I'm going to take the self-described details of this guy with an large grain of salt. Mensa, a conviction by a "Negro jury," etc.

Incidentally:

"When a Jew CEO deliberately farts in a business meeting, to express his contempt, I seem to react unfavorably."

Wha-huh?

He sounds like a nut. Beyond the obvious, of course.

[Ryan Thunder]

How does a 89-year old Nazi sneak a rifle into the holocaust museum?

[[R_H]]

How does a 89-year old Nazi sneak a rifle into the holocaust museum?

The people on duty must have been blind or sleeping on the job to let someone get a rifle through the front doors at that place. Security is not exactly lacking. A shooting just outside would be far more understandable. Last time I visited they had two distinct layers of guards outside, and then only let you through the revolving doors one at a time to go right into a metal detector, and I know they spent like 100 million on upgrades since then.

(bolding mine)

[FSTargetDrone]

It's just coming through now with more information. The shot guard has died (same link as above):

updated 2 minutes ago

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.

Racist Web site

Von Brunn has a racist, anti-Semitic Web site and wrote a book titled "Kill the Best Gentile."

In 1983, he was convicted of attempting to kidnap members of the Federal Reserve Board. He was arrested two years earlier outside the room where the board was meeting, carrying a revolver, knife and sawed-off shotgun. At the time, police said Von Brunn wanted to take the members hostage because of high interest rates and the nation's economic difficulties.

The museum houses exhibits and records relating to the Holocaust more than a half century ago in which more than six million Jews were killed by the Nazis.

It is located across the street from the National Mall, and within sight of the Washington Monument. The museum, which draws about 1.7 million visitors each year, was closed for the day after the shooting, and nearby streets were cordoned off by police. Surrounding roads were closed at least temporarily and blocked off with yellow tape. Police cars and officers on horses surrounded the area.

At the White House, just a few blocks away, press secretary Robert Gibbs said he informed President Barack Obama of the events and the chief executive was "obviously saddened by what has happened."

The museum normally has a heavy security presence with guards positioned both inside and outside. All visitors are required to pass through metal detectors at the entrance, and bags are screened.

Linda Elston, who was visiting the museum from Nevada City, Calif., said she was on the lower level of the museum watching a film when she and others were told to evacuate.

"It was totally full of people," Elston said. "It took us a while to get out."

She said she didn't hear any shots and didn't immediately know why there was an evacuation. The experience left her feeling "a little anxious," she said.

Thousands inside museum

A museum official said a couple of thousand people were inside the facility when the shooting broke out, just before 1 p.m. ET.

The Embassy of Israel in Washington said it was "shocked and saddened" by the shooting in a statement.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations also released a statement: "We condemn this apparent bias-motivated attack and stand 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."

The museum, the largest U.S. memorial to the Holocaust, opened in 1993 and has been a target of at least one domestic terrorism threat in the past. In 2002, prosecutors said two members of white supremacist groups had plotted to build a fertilizer bomb — like the one used to destroy an Oklahoma City federal building — to blow up the Holocaust museum. Authorities said the two had plotted to incite a race war.

By the way, take a careful look at those weapons' offenses. He never should have been allowed out after those earlier crimes.

[Pablo Sanchez]

How does a 89-year old Nazi sneak a rifle into the holocaust museum?

Apparently he didn't sneak at all, he just walked in holding the rifle openly and got in a shootout with the first guards he saw.

I'm going to go out on a limb and guess this guy just got a medical death sentence of some kind and/or self diagnosed himself as going to die soon so he went off on this shoot spree.

Perhaps, and the unplanned, suicidal nature of attack seems to offer support to this version of events, but there's also been multiple violent outbursts from far-right individuals in the past few months and I see this as being one event in a series. They're stirred up because they see the President as a Black Muslim Communist who will destroy America, and so they keep popping off one by one as time goes by. It could be that this guy got diagnosed with cancer or something, or it could be that he got a parking ticket or was denied for a library card. Just from the information about him that jumped right off the page within an hour of the police investigation he was clearly a crazy racist, so ran close to edge all the time anyway. It wouldn't have taken much.

[CaptHawkeye]

He was a PT Boat Captain? In the ETO or Pacific? If he was in the Pacific, I wouldn't be surprised if he was equally hateful of Japanese and other Asians. But more than likely, he served in the ETO, where he was exposed at face to Nazi rhetoric and manipulation. Despite the best efforts of the Allies to annihilate it, the backwards teachings of Nazism are very persisent indeed. It's actually pretty sad that an obsolete, pointlessly violent political philosphy can still pull people's strings to this day. Even in death Hitler is still killing people.

As for this guy, rot in the same circle of Hell with your Furher you donkey fucking Nazi prick.

[Darth Wong]

The guy was born in 1920. Just about everyone born around that time was a goddamned racist prick. Unfortunately, this guy clearly had very strong mental defenses against popular culture, which shifted far to the left on the race issue during his long life.

[Sea Skimmer]

Apparently he didn't sneak at all, he just walked in holding the rifle openly and got in a shootout with the first guards he saw.

That still makes no sense at all. The guards stand right at the doors inside and outside, besides the ones further out at the curb. You cannot enter without walking within 2 feet of an armed guard. Either they’ve had serious budget cutbacks just recently, which I highly doubt, or someone was sleeping on the job, or something else happened.

[Broomstick]

How often do Holocaust Museums and Jews in general get targeted by hate groups nowadays? Are they blaming the current financial crisis on the Jews again?

There has always been a certain low level of simmering hate in the US for Jews (or any other minority you care to name). Security guards for synagogues are more common than most people realize, and unfortunately are sometimes needed. The nutjobs are just as happy to blame the Jews for the world's problem as anyone else, and this whackjob seemed to hate pretty much everybody.

Born in 1920? While the quoted article doesn't come out and say it, between the last name, the age, his racist views, and the claim of serving in WW2, it sounds like this man was probably an original Nazi.

I got the impression in WWII he was nominally on our side, not the Third Reich's. Which doesn't prevent him from being an "original Nazi", I suppose, but he could very well be a home grown one.

The guy was born in 1920. Just about everyone born around that time was a goddamned racist prick. Unfortunately, this guy clearly had very strong mental defenses against popular culture, which shifted far to the left on the race issue during his long life.

People also like to forget that a lot of people in the US, particularly of German descent were avid supporters of the Nazis, Hitler, and the Third Reich in their early days, before the US went to war with them. The Nazis did receive funding from groups in the US before the US entered the European theater of the war. Quite a few prominent Americans supported Hitler (probably the most well known being Charles Lindbergh), eugenics was quite popular in the US (in fact, I think the Nazis claimed the US eugenics movement inspired them), and the US turned away boatloads of Jewish refugees fleeing the Nazis during the war. All very unpleasant facts we'd rather forget - which I'm sure the Holocaust museum touches upon somewhere. In 1920 this person's attitudes and beliefs were pretty mainstream - the difference is that society changed and he did not.

[hongi]

How often do Holocaust Museums and Jews in general get targeted by hate groups nowadays?

I know that in Australia, hardly the first place you'd think of as anti-Semitic, quite a few Jewish schools get government funding for security e.g. security cameras outside, guards, all manner of fencing, metal detectors...perhaps not a big deal compared to the US, but in Australia that's practically the equivalent to a fortress.

[Pablo Sanchez]

That still makes no sense at all. The guards stand right at the doors inside and outside, besides the ones further out at the curb. You cannot enter without walking within 2 feet of an armed guard. Either they’ve had serious budget cutbacks just recently, which I highly doubt, or someone was sleeping on the job, or something else happened.

Maybe the reporting I read was wrong and he had the weapon concealed under a long coat, and he only opened fire after he saw the security station with the metal detector and figured out he wasn't getting any farther in. Honestly, this only happened a few hours ago so the news media haven't yet got around to figuring out exactly how it happened.

[Kanastrous]

Just heard something remarkable from some talking pile of clothing on CNN - that you know, the FBI expends considerable resources tracking and monitoring hate groups like white supremacists, but other hate groups, too, like the Earth Liberation Front, and radical animal rights activists.

Sure, ELF and some of the wacky-fun animals-firsters have done some damage, but...hate groups? Now we equate animal-rights and environmental extremists with Klansmen and Nazis...?

[Broomstick]

Environmental extremist have engaged in acts of arson, burning multiple houses down at once. They have engaged in sabotage that has caused severe injury and even death to people like loggers.

Animal rights groups have release laboratory animals, some of which may be infected with potentially contagious diseases. Some of them advocate violence.

Why wouldn't those two categories have the potential to be a threat?

[Mr Bean]

Broomstick is right, don't think lefty crazies are less dangerous because most of them are gun-phobic. Greenpeace and PETA can still do serious damage right along side groups like the Klan. It's just their much less militant about it. Letting out a Ebola sick money could do far more damage than shoot up a clinic under the wrong circumstances.

[Kanastrous]

Sure, some of their actions pose a threat. What I find objectionable is lumping them in the same category as race-hate groups. If the ELF or radical animal-rights types are 'hate groups,' against whom is their hate directed? The 'hate group' construction is not commonly understood to cover people who act out of convictions unrelated to race/ethnicity/religion/gender identity, is it?

[CaptainChewbacca]

MENSA-membership? I hate it when people tout that as an accomplishment. I'd be a member of Mensa right now if I wanted to pay the annual dues. Its for smart people with low self esteem so they join a club where they can talk about how smart they are.

Ever been to a Mensa party? An opening line is 'what's your IQ?'

[Kanastrous]

I've been invited to attend meetings/join MENSA by members who apparently think I could qualify.

The idea of being stuck in a room with a crowd of people like the ones I have in mind might be a good working definition of Hell.

[Plekhanov]

Environmental extremist have engaged in acts of arson, burning multiple houses down at once. They have engaged in sabotage that has caused severe injury and even death to people like loggers.

Are you sure that they've actually killed? I searched for examples of eco & animal rights terrorism a few years ago (iirc I started a thread here on the subject as well asking for examples) and couldn't find any examples of deaths only property damage.

Broomstick is right, don't think lefty crazies are less dangerous because most of them are gun-phobic. Greenpeace and PETA can still do serious damage right along side groups like the Klan. It's just their much less militant about it. Letting out a Ebola sick money could do far more damage than shoot up a clinic under the wrong circumstances.

Not that I'd call them 'lefty' but eco & animal rights terrorists are less dangerous in that they tend to go for property damage often seeking to avoid human casualties whereas far right groups set out to and do kill people.

Actual 'lefty crazies', by which I mean revolutionary socialists have obviously killed many people in the past but largely seem to be a thing of the past, in the west at least.