Gunman shoots, kills, guard at Holocaust Museum | ABC30 Fresno

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By ABC30

Thursday, June 11, 2009

Washington, DC -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum website
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The Holocaust Museum is closed to the public. Police are pursuing this as a hate-crime investigation. 2,000 people were in the museum when the gunman entered.

Police say James Von Brunn parked his car just outside the museum, approached the main entrance and fired a rifle at security.

The bullets hit security officer Steven Tyron Johns, he died at the same hospital where Von Brunn arrived handcuffed to a gurney. Von Brunn is a Maryland man known for his online racist and anti-Semitic writings, he was convicted of brandishing a sawed off shotgun in the Federal Reserve lobby in 1981. Seventeen Jewish members of the House of Representatives went to the lawn of the U.S. Capitol Wednesday night to condemn the shooting.

President Obama issued a statement, calling this act outrageous. /*James Van Brunn*/ is in the Hospital in critical condition.

/*Stephen Johns*/ served on the museum's security staff for six years. The /*Holocaust Museum*/ in Washington, DC will be closed Wednesday and flags will be flown at half-staff in memory of johns.