BLOODY NAZISM ALIVE IN U.S.A.

A rifle-wielding man entered Washington's Holocaust museum on Wednesday, killing a security guard before being wounded by return fire from other guards. Stephen Tyrone Johns, a six-year veteran of the museum's security staff, "died heroically in the line of duty," said Sara Bloomfield, museum director.

Law enforcement identified the suspect as James W. von Brunn, an 88-year-old white supremacist from Maryland.

He is a known Holocaust denier who created an anti-Semitic Web site called "The Holy Western Empire." He has repeatedly claimed "The Diary of Anne Frank," a widely read book about a teenage girl's experiences under Nazi rule, was a hoax.

The museum shooting occurred on a day the museum was to stage a play based on Anne Frank and two days before what would have her 80th birthday.

Investigators found a notebook in the suspect's car listing other locations in Washington.Both Johns and Von Brunn were taken to George Washington University Hospital, said D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty. Johns died at the hospital. Von Brunn was in critical condition, Fenty said.
Johns, 40, was a resident of Temple Hills, Maryland, according to a statement issued by Wackenhut Services Inc., which has provided security services at the museum since 2002.

Brunn served six years in prison for trying in 1981 to kidnap Federal Reserve board members because of high interest rates. He blamed his prison term on a "Negro jury, Jew/Negro attorneys" and "a Jew judge," he said on his Web site.

The Southern Poverty Law Center, which focuses on human rights, said Brunn has "an extremely long history with neo-Nazis and white supremacists."


Sirens blared as emergency vehicles converged on the area, which is near the Washington Monument and other popular tourist attractions. The museum was full at the time, with a "couple of thousand" people inside, said William Parsons, chief of staff at the museum.

The museum canceled a performance scheduled for Wednesday night of a play about racism and anti-Semitism, based on a fictional meeting between Anne Frank and Emmett Till, the teenage victim of a racist killing in the United States.