Post by Zach on Jun 11, 2009 16:04:32 GMT -6
I'm currently in D.C., and was a few blocks away when a gunman shot and killed a security guard at the Holocaust Memorial Museum.. Prayers go out to the victim's family!
WASHINGTON (W. Post) - An elderly man with virulent anti-Semitic views and a 1980s conviction for plotting to take government hostages opened fire Wednesday inside the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, killing a security guard before being wounded in a gunbattle that pierced the silence of one of Washington's most somber memorials.
Witnesses described a chaotic scene inside the museum that began Wednesday shortly before 1 p.m., when the suspect, identified as 88-year-old James W. von Brunn of Annapolis, began firing a .22-caliber rifle at the chest of a security guard before other guards returned fire.
Mr. von Brunn was well-known to monitors of hate groups as an avowed anti-Semite who also expressed hatred for non-whites and the U.S. government. In a Web posting he purportedly made in November, he made threats against Congress and Holocaust memorials.
