Holocaust museum guard shot, killed

"It was so loud, and it didn't stop," said Chris Dupuis, a teacher at Boston's MATCH Charter Public High School, who was sitting on a bench only 15 feet from the museum entrance when the gunman opened fire. "That was when we knew something was wrong. Everyone just started screaming and running as fast as they could."

Dupuis's group of 10th graders was one of three from Massachusetts on class trips to the Washington museum yesterday. None of the students was injured. Many recounted the chaotic, harrowing scene by phone as they called parents and other loved ones to tell them they were safe.

"The students were extremely shaken up, especially since we didn't have everyone together immediately," Dupuis said. "There's been a lot of crying, a lot of anxious calls home."

Danielle DeVellis, a 14-year-old from Swampscott Middle School, said she heard the shots from the third floor. "We thought it was part of the exhibit because it wasn't really loud," she said. "And then people started screaming and saying, 'Get down, he has a gun.' "

DeVellis and her classmates were led by museum security to a back stairway, then brought outside once the scene was secure.

A law enforcement source identified the gunman, who was injured by security guards, as James W. von Brunn, 88. Von Brunn was listed as living in Lebanon, N.H., when he was charged in 1981 with trying to kidnap members of the Federal Reserve Board in Washington, D.C. He was in prison until 1989.

On an anti-Semitic website extolling a "Holy Western Empire," a person identified as von Brunn recently wrote that he served in the US Navy during World War II, worked for 20 years as an advertising executive and film producer in New York, then became "an artist and author" living in Maryland.

The fatally injured security guard was identified by police as 39-year-old Stephen Tyrone Johns of Temple Hills, Md. He and Brunn were both taken to George Washington University Hospital. Johns died at the hospital, authorities said later, and von Brunn was reported to be in critical condition. A third person sustained minor injuries, police said.

A woman who opened the door at von Brunn's apartment, in a neighborhood outside downtown Annapolis, declined to comment.

Neighbors, who asked that they not be identified, said that they recently invited von Brunn to their home for a drink, and that he unexpectedly brought up his belief that the Holocaust did not occur.

"He didn't believe the Holocaust existed," one of the neighbors said. "It was just off the wall."

Police recovered a notebook that apparently contained a list of Washington locations, law enforcement sources said. Bomb squads were called to search and secure those locations after the shooting, including one in the 1400 block of Pennsylvania Avenue, near the White House.

In describing the scene, Dupuis said that when the shots rang out, sending a deafening echo through the vast lobby of the Holocaust museum, for a split-second he thought a large object must have crashed to the floor. But when the staccato blasts persisted, sending waves of screaming people diving for cover and sprinting madly away from the museum entrance, he realized it was gunfire.

Dupuis said that students were scattered through the museum at the time of the shooting, and that several were in the lobby area. With the help of security, they were quickly taken to safety, he said.

"Security did a wonderful job clearing the area, even though it was incredibly chaotic," Dupuis said.

The students gathered in a nearby park near the museum, and within 15 minutes everyone had been accounted for, Dupuis said.

Following the shooting, Dupuis's group canceled the rest of the day's scheduled activities. "We're going to need some time to process all this," he said.

Jorge Miranda, the school's principal, said the students had been touring the museum for about 90 minutes when the shots were fired. From the third floor, he watched the chaos unfold in the lobby below.

"I heard a sort of popping noise but didn't pay it much mind," Miranda said. "But then you begin to hear screams. It was really surreal. Everyone was down on the ground."

Miranda quickly collected as many students as he could, and security guards led them from the building.

"The scariest thing is we didn't know if there were multiple gunmen or if they caught the guy or what was going on," Miranda said. "It was a frightening experience."

In a statement issued by the White House, President Obama said: "I am shocked and saddened by today's shooting at the US Holocaust Memorial Museum. This outrageous act reminds us that we must remain vigilant against anti-Semitism and prejudice in all its forms. No American institution is more important to this effort than the Holocaust Museum, and no act of violence will diminish our determination to honor those who were lost by building a more peaceful and tolerant world."

Anthony Nicolo, 13, was in the museum with other eighth-graders from the Holten Richmond Middle School in Danvers. "I was, like, confused," he said. "I called mom right away."

Kaylyn Powers, 14, also a Danvers middle schooler, said some students started "freaking out and crying" after hearing the shots. Still, the students were able to carry on with their day, visiting two other museums before heading to a Washington Nationals baseball game.

Some 50 students and teachers from Solomon Schechter Day School of Greater Boston, in Washington for a multiday visit, were on their way to the museum when the shooting occurred, said Arnold Zar-Kessler, head of the school. Parents were quickly notified that their children were safe, he said.

Derrek L. Shulman, Anti-Defamation League New England regional director, said in a statement: "The violence at the national Holocaust Memorial and Museum reminds us where the spread of hatred too often leads. Our heart breaks for the victim and family of the security guard, who was killed in the line of duty, protecting visitors, staff members, and artifacts."

A spokesman for the museum, Andy Hollinger, said in a statement that after the gunman opened fire, two museum security officers returned fire, hitting the assailant.

The gunman came into the entrance and immediately opened fire, striking one security guard, Mayor Adrian Fenty said.

"There was gunfire returned," Fenty said. "The gunman was hit."

Washington Police Chief Cathy Lanier said the assailant appeared to be a lone gunman who entered the museum and opened fire with what appeared to be a rifle. The assailant's weapon was visible as he entered the museum, she said.

"Immediately as he entered the front doors of the museum, he raised the rifle and started shooting," Lanier said. "The second he stepped into the building, he began firing."

Von Brunn boasted in a website biography and on a Wikipedia page of an escapade in which he attempted to take over the Federal Reserve on Dec. 7, 1981, holding the board of governors "under citizen's arrest" and charging them with treason. He was arrested, tried, and sentenced to 11 years in federal prison. He blamed his conviction on Jewish and black lawyers, black jurors, and a Jewish judge.

Upon his release after serving over six years in prison, von Brunn said, he joined Mensa, the society for people who score in the top 2 percent of a standardized intelligence test. An executive assistant at Mensa, Joy Martin, confirmed that von Brunn was a member for a year, starting April 2, 1987.

The museum said it would be closed today and lower its flags to half-staff to honor Johns.

"There are no words to express our grief," the statement said.

Material from the Washington Post and the Associated Press was used in this report. Steven Rosenberg and Katheleen Conti of the Globe staff and Globe correspondent Alan Wirzbicki contributed to the story.