Gunman kills one at Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C.

Wednesday, June 10, 2009

According to local police, James Von Brunn, an 88-year-old man armed with a rifle has shot and killed guard Stephen Tyrone Johns, and been wounded himself, in the Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C. on Wednesday afternoon.

The incident occurred slightly after 1:00 p.m. (EDT) (17:00 UTC). Preliminary reports say that the man entered the building and opened fire, firing five or six rounds before being shot down by other security guards in the building.

Roads next to the museum were shut down after the shooting happened.

The gunman had links to white supremacists, police say.

"I heard a shot and though it was sort of a loud, like someone had dropped something," said an eyewitness, Angela Andelson, to the Agence France-Presse news agency. "And I see all these security guards kind of like ducking. I kind of glanced again and saw a gunman coming in [...] a long-looking kind of gun. I just ran in to one of the exhibits to try to take cover. I heard the first one. When I turned and looked there were maybe two to four more shots that I heard. People were screaming and ducking down getting on the floor, getting under benches."

Have an opinion on this story? Share it!

Sources

William Branigin and Debbi Wilgoren. "Security Guard Killed at U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum" — The Washington Post, June 10, 2009
"Two Shot at Holocaust Museum in D.C., Police Say" — The New York Times, June 10, 2009
"Shooting at US Holocaust museum" — BBC News Online, June 10, 2009

Share this:

This page is archived, and is no longer publicly editable.

Articles presented on Wikinews reflect the specific time at which they were written and published, and do not attempt to encompass events or knowledge which occur or become known after their publication.

Got a correction? Add the template {{editprotected}} to the talk page along with your corrections, and it will be brought to the attention of the administrators.

Please note that due to our archival policy, we will not alter or update the content of articles that are archived, but will only accept requests to make grammatical and formatting corrections.

Note that some listed sources or external links may no longer be available online due to age.

The text of this article is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 License