Holocaust museum shooter charged with murder

Jun 12, 2009, 5:21 GMT

Washington - An elderly white supremacist and anti-Semite who opened fire in the US Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington and killed a black security guard has been charged with murder and could face hate crime and civil rights charges, officials said Thursday.

A Federal Bureau of Investigation agent indicated the shooting had triggered a nationwide investigation to make sure the suspect had acted alone 'on these very hallowed grounds of the Holocaust museum.'

'It is very important that we send a message that this country does not authorize or approve any act that is attached to hatred in America,' said FBI agent Joseph Persechini.

James W von Brunn, 88 carrying a long rifle, entered the museum just blocks from the National Mall and Washington Monument shortly before 1 pm Wednesday and immediately fired at an armed security guard who had opened the door for him.

The guard, Stephen Tyrone Johns, 39, an African-American who had worked at the museum for six years, died of his injuries later at a local hospital. The museum remained closed Thursday in his honour.

Two other guards immediately opened fire on von Brunn in the museum lobby, leaving him in critical condition and in hospital. He is being charged with murder and possessing a weapon on federal government property, Washington Police Chief Cathy Lanier told reporters on Thursday.

Museum chief of staff Bill Parsons said Johns and other security guards were trained not only to protect but also to 'be caring.'

'Stephen opened that door for the elderly man coming in,' Parsons said. 'He was caring about him, and he opened the door, and he was shot.'

'There's no shortage of hate in the world. When it happens to your workplace, your colleagues, it gets very painful,' he said.

Von Brunn has written numerous anti-Semitic articles posted online, including a book called Kill the Best Gentiles, which he calls 'a new hard-hitting expose of the Jewish conspiracy to destroy the white gene pool.'

The shooting was decried by groups such as the Southern Poverty Law Centre, which tracks hate groups, and the Anti-Defamation League, which works to combat anti-Semitism, among others.

'Brunn's evil attack, at the very place that was created to remember and teach about evil in the world, is an immediate reminder that words of hate matter, that we can never afford to ignore hate because words of hate can easily become acts of hate, no matter the place, no matter the age of the hatemonger,' said Abraham H Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation League.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations, a Muslim civil liberties and advocacy group, Wednesday condemned 'this apparent bias-motivated attack' and said in a statement that 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.'

Von Brunn, on a website, claims to have served with the US military in World War II, worked for a New York advertising agency and belong to Mensa, the high-IQ society.

The FBI was investigating his ties to hate groups, but stressed that he appeared to have acted alone. The FBI did not have an open investigation on von Brunn, but he was known to the bureau for his hateful speech, Persechini said.

Pereschini noted the fine line that investigators walk between hate crime charges and protection of constitutional rights of expression. He said that 'many of these individuals are totally aware of what you can or cannot say ... in crossing the line that would trigger a terrorist investigation.'

The shooting at the museum activated a city-wide scramble to make sure it was not part of a broader terrorism attack on the capital, Lanier said.

Washington Mayor Adrian Fenty noted the special nature of the violence at the Holocaust Museum, an institution that exists 'because they are trying to recognize wrongs done in the past ... and make sure they're not repeated.'

Pereschini said that a search of von Brunn's car parked outside the museum entrance turned up documents that contained names and addresses. FBI agents had contacted the people named in the documents to make sure there was no 'potential threat' against them.

The museum, funded by both private and government money, has had nearly 30 million visitors since its dedication in 1993 and works to increase awareness not only of the World War II Holocaust but of contemporary humanitarian issues such as the genocide in Darfur.