At approximately 12:50 p.m. on June 10, 2009, 88-year-old James Wenneker von Brunn entered the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C., with a slide-action rifle and fatally shot Museum Special Police Officer Stephen Tyrone Johns. Other special police officers returned fire, wounding von Brunn, who was apprehended.[1][4][5][6]
Von Brunn was charged in federal court on June 11, 2009, with first-degree murder and firearms violations.[7] On July 29, 2009, von Brunn was indicted by a federal grand jury on seven counts.[8] Included in the indictment were three hate crime charges, as well as four charges which made him eligible for the death penalty.[9][10] In September 2009, a judge ordered von Brunn to undergo a competency evaluation to determine whether or not he could stand trial.[11] On January 6, 2010, von Brunn died of natural causes while awaiting trial.[12]
At about 12:49 p.m., 88-year-old James von Brunn[15][16][17] drove his car to the 14th Street entrance of the museum.[1][7] Von Brunn entered the museum when Museum Special Police Officer Stephen Tyrone Johns opened the door for him.[18] Authorities said he raised a Winchester Model 1906.22-caliberrifle[2] and shot Special Police Officer Johns once in the upper torso;[4][5] Johns later died of his injuries at the George Washington University Hospital.[3] Two other Special Police Officers stationed with Officer Johns, Harry Weeks and Jason "Mac" McCuiston, then exchanged fire with von Brunn, wounding him with a shot to the face.[19] According to police officers at the scene, a third person was injured by broken glass but refused treatment at the hospital.[3]
In total, 11 shots were fired during the incident (three from von Brunn and eight from Weeks and McCuiston).[20]
Immediate aftermath
A sign honoring Stephen Tyrone Johns, the Special Police Officer shot and killed during the shooting, located in the museum's lobby.
The Washington Post reported that "if it weren't for the quick response of the private guards on duty, more people could have been killed or wounded." MayorAdrian Fenty stated that the officers' efforts "to bring this gunman down so quickly ... saved the lives of countless people... This could have been much, much worse."[21] Inside, the museum was crowded with visiting schoolchildren.[4] Museum officials said that "the entire incident unfolded in approximately two minutes."[22]
Police said they found a notebook on von Brunn that contained a list of District locations, including the Washington National Cathedral; they dispatched bomb squads to at least 10 sites.[26] The notebook also contained this passage, signed by von Brunn: "You want my weapons—this is how you'll get them. The Holocaust is a lie. Obama was created by Jews. Obama does what his Jew owners tell him to do. Jews captured America's money. Jews control the mass media. The 1st Amendment is abrogated henceforth."[7]
The FBI and Washington, D.C. police chief Cathy L. Lanier said that it appeared von Brunn was acting alone at the time of the shooting, and the FBI said it had no knowledge of any threat against the museum.[27][28] The museum's director of security said they receive threats, but "nothing this significant recently".[14]
Several news agencies have noted the timing of the June 10 shooting; it came shortly after Obama's June 5 visit to and speech at the Buchenwald concentration camp,[30] and that "President Obama’s recent visit to the Buchenwald Concentration Camp, in Germany, may have set off the shooter."[31]
On his website, von Brunn stated that his conviction in the 1980s was by "a Negro jury, Jew/Negro attorneys" and that he was "sentenced to prison for eleven years by a Jew judge." A Court of Appeals denied his appeal.[16]
Victim
Special Police Officer Stephen Tyrone Johns (October 4, 1969 – June 10, 2009), a Temple Hills, Maryland native, was an employee of Wackenhut who was, at the time of the shooting, stationed at the door of the museum when von Brunn entered with a .22 caliber long rifle and shot him. He later died at the George Washington University Hospital. His funeral was held on June 19, 2009, at Ebenezer AME Church in Fort Washington, Maryland, with 2,000 attendees,[32] and he was subsequently interred. The American Jewish Committee established a memorial fund for the family.[33]
Burglary, assault, weapons charges, and attempted kidnapping
Criminal penalty
Imprisonment of six and a half years
Von Brunn was born in St. Louis, Missouri, the first of two children. His father was a native of Houston, Texas, and a superintendent at the Scullin Steel Mill in Houston during World War II. His mother was a piano teacher and homemaker.
Von Brunn's arrest history dates back at least as far as the middle 1960s. In 1968, he received a six-month jail sentence in Maryland for fighting with a sheriff during an incident at the county jail.[39] He had earlier been arrested for driving under the influence following an altercation at a local restaurant in 1966.[40]
Von Brunn was arrested in 1981 for attempted kidnapping[41] and hostage-taking[42] of members of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors after approaching the Federal Reserve's Eccles Building armed with a revolver, knife, and sawed-off shotgun.[43][44] Von Brunn later described his actions as a "citizen's arrest for treason."[42][41] He reportedly complained of "high interest rates" during the incident and was disarmed without any shots being fired, after threatening a security guard with a .38 caliber pistol.[45] He reportedly claimed he had a bomb, which was found to be only a device designed to look like a bomb.[46] He was convicted in 1983 for burglary, assault, weapons charges, and attempted kidnapping.[42] Von Brunn's sentence was completed by September 15, 1989,[47] after he had served six and a half years in prison.[48] After he was released he successfully tested for and joined Mensa International; however, he was eventually dropped from membership for failing to pay his annual dues.[49]
After the shooting, federal authorities raided his apartment and seized a rifle, ammunition, computers, a handwritten will, and a painting of Jesus Christ standing adjacent to Adolf Hitler.[52] The FBI also stated it discovered child pornography on one of the seized computers.[53]
Von Brunn was charged in federal court on June 11, 2009, with first-degree murder and firearms violations; he pleaded not guilty to all of the charges.[54] On July 29, 2009, von Brunn was indicted on seven counts, including four which made him eligible for the death penalty.[55] In September 2009, a judge ordered von Brunn to undergo a competency evaluation to determine whether or not he could stand trial.[56]
Von Brunn had the Federal Bureau of Prisons ID# 07128-016 and was incarcerated at the Federal Correctional Complex in Butner, North Carolina.[57] On January 6, 2010, von Brunn died in a hospital located near the prison.[58] According to a statement by his attorney, von Brunn had "a long history of poor health," including sepsis and chronic congestive heart failure.[59]
Reaction
The day after the shooting, the Holocaust Museum's flag flew at half-staff in memory of the murdered guard, Stephen Tyrone Johns.
On June 11, 2009, the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Washington and the InterFaith Conference of Metropolitan Washington led a prayer vigil that took place in front of the museum to honor Stephen Johns, the slain officer.[64] Approximately 100 people attended the event, including officials from the Israeli and German embassies.[65] The Council on American-Islamic Relations condemned the attack as well.[26] When the museum reopened on June 12, 2009, Director Sara Bloomfield said attendance was normal or even higher than usual. Many visitors said their attendance was a statement against hate and intolerance. A 17-year-old girl who was in the museum the day of the shooting stated, "It's important to come back, because if you don't, they win. It's a form of terrorism."[66]
On the white nationalist Internet forum Stormfront, some users criticized von Brunn's actions, saying they hurt the forum's cause. Others supported him in threads that were later removed, some of which later reappeared.[67]
^ abcHalsey III, Ashley; Paul Duggan (2009-06-11). "Was He Capable of This? Yes". Washington Post. Archived from the original on 2012-11-08. Retrieved 2009-06-13.
^Davenport, Christian (June 11, 2009). "Stepping Up to Defy Intolerance". The Washington Post. Archived from the original on September 16, 2017. Retrieved October 28, 2017.
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