Supremacist Kills Security Guard

Headlines 2009 - Reviews - What Happened in 2009 - Documentary

By Andreas Klamm

New York City / Washington D.C., June 12, 2009. A supremacist opened fire on Wednesday, June 10, at the Washington DC´s Holocaust Memorial Museum and killed a security guard. According to the daily news hour Democracy NOW ! (www.democracynow.org ) with Amy Goodman and Juan Gonzalez, the man which killed the security guard, James W. von Brunn (88) is known as longtime white supremacist. He also injured another security guard before security guards and police officers of the Metropolitan Police were able to stop the shooting of the man.

The 88 years old man got shot after other security guards returned fire. The attacker has been seriously injured. The killing of an African-American security guard came hours before a new play, Anne Frank and Emmett Till [Anne & Emmett], opened at the museum.

The shooting is the third incident in as many months linked to White Nationalist Groups. Last month on May 31 st abortion provider Dr. George Tiller has been slain at his church in Wichita, Kansas and on April 4 th three police officers in Pittsburgh, Philadelphia have been killed.

The killing of the security guard on Wednesday could be connected with anti-Semitic hate crimes.

Bill Parsons, chief of staff at the museum said: “We just want to say that never take your guard force or your security people for granted. These folks are trained. They train all the time. They did exactly what they were supposed to do to protect people at the museum. Our hearts really go out to the family right now and to the guard who was shot.”

The Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C. has been closed on Thursday in honor of Stephen Johns, the security guard who was killed.

Wednesday was not James von Brunn’s first run-in with the law. Police has released information which describes the shooter as a longtime white supremacist and anti-Semite.

About 28 years ago, in 1981 he was arrested after entering the headquarters of the Federal Reserve, armed with a revolver and a twelve-gauge shotgun. The attacker told police he was planning to take Paul Volcker, then chair of the Federal Reserve Board, hostage. He ended up serving over six years in jail for that incident.

Von Brunn runs the website HolyWesternEmpire.org, which was listed last year as a hate site by the Southern Poverty Law Center. He once worked at Noontide Press, run by Willis Carto, one of the most prominent white nationalists and anti-Semites in the United States of America (U.S.A.).

Supremacism is the belief that a particular race, religion, gender, species, belief system or culture is superior to others. A supremacist entitles those who identify with it to dominate, control or rule those who do not.

Examples include supremacism based on ethnic or anthropological origins (white supremacy, black supremacy, ethnocentrism), sexuality (male supremacy, female supremacy), sentience (human supremacy, alien supremacy) and religion. More information on the issue of supremacism is available on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supremacism.

The daily news hour Democracy Now ! (www.democracynow.org) with the award winning journalist, broadcast journalist and author Amy Goodman and Juan Gonzalez broadcast Monday to Friday. The educational news hour can been seen on more than 750 TV stations in North of America and around the world and broadcast also on about 250 radio stations in the U.S.A. and around the world.

Copies of the news hour Democracy NOW! are available on the official web site on www.democracynow.org including transcripts in the English and Spanish language.