Holocaust Museum Shooting Leaves 1 Dead

James Von Brunn

UPDATE: James von Brunn has died in prison.

James Von Brunn, an 89-year-old white supremacist who runs the Holy Western Empire website at www.holywesternempire.org,opened fire today at the Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C.

At 12:50pm EDT, shots were reported at the Holocaust Museum and initial reports indicated that two people had been wounded.  Now, however, officials have confirmed in a statement that 39-year-old Officer Stephen Tyrone Johns has died of his injuries.  He had served on the museum's security staff for six years.

"There are no words to express our grief and shock over today's events," the statement said, adding that the museum would remain closed Thursday in his honor.

James Von Brunn served six years in prison on federal attempted kidnapping, assault and firearms charges after what he called a “legal, nonviolent citizens arrest” of members of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors.  At the time, police said he wanted to take the Board hostage because of high interest rates and the country's financial problems.

Law enforcement officials said Von Brunn's car was parked near the museum and was tested for explosives and authorities were also entering his home to check his PC and investigate the incident as a potential hate crime or domestic terrorism.

Brunn entered the museum shortly before 1pm and shot the security guard before two other guards returned fire, injuring Brunn.

Brunn used a sawed-off shotgun in today's Holocaust Museum shooting.

On the Holy Western Empire website, James von Brunn said he was “convicted by a Negro jury, Jew/Negro attorneys, and sentenced to prison for eleven years by a Jew judge.”

“He is in our files going back way into the 1980s,” said Heidi Beirich, a researcher for the Montgomery, Alabama-based Southern Poverty Law Center.

“He has extremely long history with neo-Nazis and white supremacists. He’s written extremely incendiary publications, raging about Jews, blacks and the like.”

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