Museum shooting
June 11, 2009
Police in Washington said the security guard was pronounced dead after being rushed to a hospital. The gunman remains in a critical condition, Mayor Adrian Fenty said.
The lone gunman's identity or connections to anti-Semitic groups could not be confirmed but media reports said he was believed to be known as white supremacist James W von Brunn.
Von Brunn is thought to be behind numerous anti-Semitic articles posted on the Internet, including a book called "Kill the Best Gentiles," which he calls "a new hard-hitting expose of the Jewish conspiracy to destroy the white gene pool."
"It appears to be a lone gunman who entered into the museum and opened fire with what appears to be a rifle at this point," Washington Police Chief Cathy Lanier said.
Museum officials identified the guard as Officer Stephen Tyrone Johns, who had worked at the museum for six years.
"I am shocked and saddened by today's shooting at the US Holocaust Memorial Museum," US President Barack Obama said in a statement. "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," he added.
Obama last week became the first US president to visit the Nazi death camp in Buchenwald, Germany where he renewed a historic commitment to Israel.
The armed man carrying a long rifle entered the museum just blocks from the National Mall and Washington Monument shortly before 1 pm (1800 CET) and immediately fired at armed security guards, Police Chief Lanier told reporters.
Two security guards returned fire and Johns and the gunman were wounded. Local media reports said a third person was hit by glass but the extent of those injuries are unknown.
Museum no stranger to threats and abuse
Security director Joseph Rosboschil said the museum receives occasional threats but there had been "nothing significant of late." Rosboschil also said the museum had more security measures than other Washington museums.
Sara J Bloomfield, director of the museum, said this apparent act of intolerance and hatred was "even more reason for this museum to exist."
The Council on American-Islamic Relations, a Muslim civil liberties and advocacy group, said in a statement that it condemned "this apparent bias-motivated attack" and stands 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."
More than 30 million people have visited the museum since its opening in 1993, including 85 heads of state.
nda, AFP/dpa/ap
Editor: Sonia Phalnikar