An 89-year-old white supremacist and Holocaust denier opened fire in Washington’s Holocaust Museum today, wounding at least one before being shot in the head by security officers.
James W von Brunn, who was charged and convicted in 1981 for running towards the boardroom of Washington’s Federal Reserve building with a shotgun, entered the Holocaust Museum just before 1pm and opened fire “indiscriminately” with a long rifle. Witnesses said that he had parked his red car directly outside, displaying a disabled badge.
A guard was immediately hit, before two other security officers at the heavily guarded museum, less than a mile from the White House, hit von Brunn in the head with return fire. He was taken to George Washington Hospital in a critical condition. Officials said he may not survive. Adrian Fenty, the Mayor of Washington, said the security guard was in a “grave condition”.
The shooting, at one of Washington’s most popular tourist destinations – filled today with schoolchildren – came after a visit last week by President Obama to the Buchenwald Concentration Camp near Dresden, in Germany. It sparked alarm in the heart of the US capital and caused most of the National Mall to be closed down.
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Updates:
4:43 pm EDT, June 10th, 2009 — Guard dies…
4:46 pm EDT, June 10th, 2009 — The National Post is updating this story as it happens…
Two major attacks since the government released that memo on right wing extremists. Not hearing too much yapping about it now are we? Let’s look at this assailant:
-Local boy
-Army veteran
-Used a long gun (obviously a weapons enthusiast)
-Cloaks his views in imagery of being Christian and Western (look at the website)
Not exactly a liberal Obama supporter, now is he? I wonder how FOX covered this …
There are millions of veterans in the US and a very large number of Christians of various persuasions..
Just based on the population there are sure to be a few crazies.
They may consider themselves Christians but they seem to have missed the basic message.
These activities need to be condemned in the strongest way possible. The legal system will deal with them as their activities are contrary to the beliefs and attitudes of most Americans.
I don’t think we will see anyone dancing in the streets.
Parading them repeatedly on the media and giving these people excessive attention could very well lead to copycats.
This is not the first time this guy attacked with a gun. He did it 30 years ago but no one died.
Cynapse, this happened just a few days after O visited the museum in Europe and made his speech over there re Israel. Any connection.
Fox covered it very well.
Fox’s coverage was a bit like your comment – tried to pass it off as an Obama issue (or at least Glenn Beck did that). Somehow the discussion (see the website) became a forum to bash Jeremiah Wright and 9/11 conspiracy theorists. It was an extensive bit of partisan spin. Had “Nut” been a Muslim, we’d already be 20 comment deep with cracks like “the religion of peace”. When it’s a good ol boy everyone’s silent.
There were several anchors in the US media yesterday that were asking that question re connection to his trip to Europe. That is not my question re connection.