Shooting at US Holocaust museum

[RedFox]

_http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/8094076.stm

A gunman armed with a rifle has shot and wounded a guard inside Washington DC's Holocaust museum before being wounded in turn, city police say.

The guard was seriously injured and the gunman is in critical condition, officials said after the incident which sowed panic among visitors.

Reports say the gunman is in his late 80s with links to white supremacists.

Located on the National Mall, the Holocaust Memorial Museum has seen 30 million visitors since opening in 1993.

Roads surrounding the museum have been closed.

A third person was hurt by broken glass, a fire official said.

Police are still out in force around the museum, the BBC's Jon Donnison reports from Washington.

Suspect named

Officials said they were investigating for any possible connection with terrorism or hate crime.

Metropolitan Police Chief Kathy Lanier said the gunman appeared to have acted alone.

He was "engaged by security guards immediately after entering the door" with a rifle, she said.

Earlier, Police Sergeant David Schlosser said the gunman had walked into the building carrying "a long gun".

"[He] fired at one of the security officers..." he told reporters.

"My understanding is that two other security officers at the museum returned gunfire at the man that had entered the museum."

James Von Brunn, an elderly white supremacist, was being investigated as a potential suspect in the shooting, an unnamed law enforcement official told the Associated Press.

Another law enforcement official said Mr Von Brunn's vehicle had been found near the museum and was being tested for explosives.

The two officials were not authorised to discuss the investigation and spoke on condition that they remain anonymous.

Mr Von Brunn's name was also reported by major US TV channels.

Now said to be 88 or 89, he has long been tied to extremist groups and served a prison sentence for taking a shotgun into Washington's Federal Reserve in 1981.

'Screaming and ducking'

One eyewitness, Angela Andelson, 22, told AFP news agency: "I heard a shot and though it was sort of a loud, like someone had dropped something.

"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."

Students on a school trip heard several gunshots before they were evacuated from the building, the mother of a Massachusetts teenager told the Associated Press.

Sandy Perkins said her daughter Abigail had called her shortly after the shooting.

Some of her friends were shaken but all were otherwise fine, the mother said.

None of the children saw where the shots were coming from before they were safely evacuated to buses outside the museum.

The museum normally has a heavy security presence with guards positioned both inside and outside.

All visitors are required to pass through metal detectors at the entrance, and bags are screened.

 

[Smallwood]

MSNBC: "Gunman, guard shot at Holocaust museum"

Gunman, guard shot at Holocaust museum

_http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/31208188/?GT1=43001

NBC News and news services
updated 3:34 p.m. ET June 10, 2009

WASHINGTON - An elderly gunman exchanged fire with security guards inside the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum on Wednesday. One security guard and the gunman were taken to a hospital with life-threatening injuries.

Law enforcement officials identified the suspect as James Wenneker von Brunn, 88, from the Eastern Shore of Maryland, NBC News reported. NBC said he may have had connections to hate groups or anti-government groups.

D.C. police spokeswoman Traci Hughes said the suspect walked into the museum at about 12:50 p.m. ET with a rifle and shot a guard. U.S. Park Police Sgt. David Schlosser says one or more guards at the museum returned fire, hitting the suspect.
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D.C. Police Chief Cathy Lanier said the suspect immediately began shooting his rifle as he entered the museum. The FBI said it had no earlier reports of threats against the museum.

Gunman in critical condition
Authorities said the gunman was in critical condition and the security guard was in grave condition. Both were taken to George Washington University Hospital.

A third person reportedly was hurt after being cut by broken glass.

Von Brunn is believed to have had contact with law enforcement in the past, according to NBC. A D.C. Superior Court jury convicted a man by the same name in 1983 of attempting to kidnap members of the Federal Reserve Board.

The case involved a 1981 incident in which police arrested Von Brunn at the board's headquarters carrying several weapons. He was convicted and later released from federal prison in 1989, records show.

At a Wednesday afternoon press conference, officials declined to publicly confirm Von Brunn is their suspect.

According to Joseph Persichini, assistant director in charge of the Washington FBI field office, authorities have dispatched people to a suspect's home to check his computer. He said they are investigating this as a possible hate crime or domestic terrorism.

A racist, anti-Semitic Web site called http://www.holywesternempire.org and a book called "Kill the Best Gentile" were attributed to von Brunn.

White House reaction
The White House said President Barack Obama was saddened by the shooting and concerned about the wounded guard.

White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said he told Obama about the shooting on Wednesday afternoon. Gibbs later told reporters that he gave Obama the facts as they were known at the time, shortly after shots were fired.




MSNBC
Gibbs says White House officials are receiving regular updates from the FBI, the Homeland Security Council and the White House Situation Room.

The museum normally has a heavy security presence with guards positioned both inside and outside. All visitors are required to pass through metal detectors at the entrance, and bags are screened.

It was not immediately known whether the gunman made it through the detectors before opening fire.

The museum, located just off the National Mall near the Washington Monument, is a popular tourist attraction. It draws about 1.7 million visitors each year.

Roads surrounding the museum have been closed and blocked off with yellow tape. Several police cars and officers on horses surround the area.

Schlosser said park police SWAT teams are doing a secondary sweep of the building, but they don't believe there is another gunman.

Students heard several shots
Sandy Perkins of Massachusetts said her daughter, Abigail, called her shortly after the shooting. The teen was on a school trip to the museum and told her mother students heard several shots before they were told to leave the building.




The teens did not see where the shots were coming from.

Linda Elston, who is visiting the museum from Nevada City, Calif., says she was on the lower level of the museum watching a film when she and others were told to evacuate.

"It was totally full of people," Elston said. "It took us awhile to get out."

She said she didn't hear any shots and didn't immediately know why there was an evacuation leaving her feeling "a little anxious."

The Embassy of Israel in Washington said it was "shocked and saddened" by the shooting in a statement.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations also released a statement:

"We condemn this apparent bias-motivated attack and stand with the Jewish community and with Americans of all faiths in repudiating the kind of hatred and intolerance that can lead to such disturbing incidents."