Six-year guard Johns at museum killed in shoot-out with von Brunn, who had anti-Semitic website

By Jeffrey Jolson

WASHINGTON, DC (Hollywood Today) 6/10/09 — Can this really be happening in the 21st Century? A man identified as a white supremacist killed a guard at the Holocaust Museum near the White House in Washington.

The security guard, who was identified by police as 39-year-old Stephen Tyrone Johns of Temple Hills, Md., and the gunman were both taken to George Washington University Hospital.
Johns died at the hospital, authorities said later, and the gunman was reported to be in critical condition. A third person sustained minor injuries in the incident, according to police.
President Obama condemned the shooting, which he said underscored the need for vigilance against anti-Semitism.
Museum officials said in a statement that Johns had worked at the museum for six years. The museum said it would be closed tomorrow, and lower its flags to half-staff, to honor Johns’s memory. “There are no words to express our grief,” the statement said.
A law enforcement source identified the gunman to the Washington Post as James W. von Brunn, 88. On an anti-Semitic Web site he apparently maintains extolling a “Holy Western Empire,” von Brunn says he served in the U.S. Navy during World War II, worked for 20 years as an advertising executive and film producer in New York and then became “an artist and author” living in Maryland.