WASHINGTON — An 88-year-old gunman with a violent and anti-Semitic past opened fire with a rifle Wednesday inside the crowded U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, fatally wounding a security guard before being shot himself by other officers, authorities said.
The assailant was hospitalized in critical condition, leaving behind a sprawling investigation by federal and local law enforcement and expressions of shock from the Israeli government and a prominent Muslim organization.
Washington Police Chief Cathy Lanier said the gunman was “engaged by security guards immediately after entering the door” with a rifle. “The second he stepped into the building he began firing.”
Law-enforcement officials said James W. von Brunn, a white supremacist, was under investigation in the shooting and that his car was found near the museum and tested for explosives. The weapon was a .22-caliber rifle, they added. They spoke on condition of anonymity, saying they were not authorized to discuss the investigation.
Officials identified the dead guard as Stephen Tyrone Johns, 39, a six-year veteran of the facility who lived in Temple Hills, Md.
Museum director Sara Bloomfield said he “died heroically in the line of duty.”
At the White House, just blocks away from the museum, President Barack Obama said, “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.”
Rabbi Steven Foster of Temple Emanuel in Denver said the shooting showed both the best and worst sides of humanity.
“On the good side, there are a lot of people who really care and feel great pain about anti-Semitism,” he said. “On the other hand, it underscores that hatred still exists, and we still have a long way to go.”
Von Brunn has a racist, anti-Semitic website and wrote a book titled “Kill the Best Gentiles,” alleging a Jewish “conspiracy to destroy the white gene pool.”
In 1983, he was convicted of trying to kidnap members of the Federal Reserve Board and served more than six years in prison. 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.
Writings attributed to von Brunn on the Internet say the Holocaust was a hoax.
The museum, which opened in 1993 and has drawn nearly 30 million visitors, houses exhibits and records relating to the Holocaust of more than a half-century ago in which more than 6 million Jews died at the hands of the Nazis.
Bruce DeBoskey, regional director of the Anti-Defamation League for the mountain states, said the shooting was particularly disturbing in light of where it took place.
“The museum is there to teach future generations lessons of when hate goes unchecked,” he said. “For him to act out his hateful beliefs at the very site dedicated to prevent it is tragic.”
The museum was crowded with schoolchildren and other tourists at the time of the attack, but they all escaped injury.
Ashley Camp, 14, of Forsyth, Ill., on a field trip with more than 40 other students, said she heard two or three gunshots. Soon after, she recalled, a security guard ordered the group to run to the exit.
“We had to sprint as fast as we could out the door,” she said. “I thought it was the movie (part of a museum exhibit), but then everyone started screaming and running.”
