< Back to front page Text size – +

Students from 3 Mass. schools at Holocaust museum during shooting

E-mail|Link|Comments () June 10, 2009 07:22 PM

Hannah Hoy, 14, of Georgetown, Texas, describes the evacuation of the museum. (By Alan Wirzbicki, Globe Correspondent)

By Andrew Ryan and Peter Schworm, Globe Staff

At least three Massachusetts schools on class trips to Washington, D.C. were touring the US Holocaust Museum today when a gunman opened fire and killed a security guard.

Teacher Chris Dupuis of MATCH Charter Public High School talks about hearing the shooting

Chris Dupuis, a teacher at Boston's Match Charter Public High School who was one of 12 teachers chaperoning 33 students, said he was in the first-floor lobby of the building when the shots broke out.

He thought at first that the "incredible sound" came from something that had collapsed or fallen over. But then, he said, "Folks started getting up and running in different directions. It was at that moment when you realized this wasn't something collapsing, these were gunshots that people were running from."

The shots sounded extremely close, he said, and the shooting was followed by a period of chaos, uncertainty, and worry.

"People were running in every direction, trying to hit the ground. We didn't know what to do or where to go," he said.

The elderly gunman opened fire with a rifle, killing a security guard before being shot himself. "The second he stepped into the building he began firing," said D.C. Police Chief Cathy Lanier. The assailant was hospitalized in critical condition.

One law enforcement official said James Von Brunn, 89, a white supremacist was under investigation in the shooting, and a second official said the man's car had been found near the museum and was tested for explosives. Museum officials identified the guard who was killed as Stephen T. Johns.

None of the students from the three Massachusetts schools witnessed the shooting, according to initial reports. There were nearly 300 students from Holten Richmond Middle School in Danvers at the museum for an annual class trip, but they were not near the shooting and "were never in any danger," said Richard Warren, director of finance and administration for the Danvers Public Schools.

From Swampscott Middle School, there were 165 eighth-graders and 16 group chaperons, according to Assistant Superintendent Maureen Bingham of the Swampscott Public Schools.

"They were in the museum at the time of the shooting but according to our assistant middle school principal, they were not near the shooting," Bingham said.

When the museum was evacuated, the Swampscott students were brought to their buses and given their cellphones so they could call their parents, Bingham said. The students then went to the next stop on their itinerary, which was lunch.

Danielle DeVellis, one of the students, said she heard the gunshots but did not see the shooter.

�We heard the gunshots. We thought it was part of the exhibit because it wasn't really loud. And then people started screaming and saying, 'Get down, he has a gun!'" said Devellis, 14, of Swampscott.

DeVellis and the rest of her classmates were on the third floor of the museum, and could see downstairs through a glass wall where the shooting took place. They were led by museum security to a back stairway, and brought outside after the event, she said.

The Danvers students were immediately whisked away from the museum in buses, which took them to their next destination, which was Mount Vernon, the Virginia site of George Washington's estate.

"We understand that all of our students are safe and that they were bused away," Warren said. "We are not sure if they were in the museum or whereabouts, but they were never in any danger."

Sandy Perkins, the mother of one of the students, told the Associated Press that she spoke with her daughter Abigail shortly after the shooting. The teenager told her mother that the students heard several gunshots before they were evacuated from the building to buses outside the museum.

Seventh-graders from the Solomon Schechter Day School of Greater Boston were also in Washington, D.C., today and had plans to go to the Holocaust Museum. The school heard about the shooting and canceled their plans, sending the student instead to the Smithsonian Museum, according to a letter sent to parents by Schechter school, which is located in Newton.

Steven Rosenberg of the Globe staff contributed to this report. Material from The Associated Press was also used.