A gunman armed with a rifle walked into the Holocaust Memorial Museum in downtown Washington today and opened fire on a security guard before being shot and seriously wounded by two guards, authorities said. The security guard and the gunman were both transported to George Washington University Hospital with serious injuries, police said. A hospital spokesperson declined to release information on the condition of the two. A third person sustained minor injuries in the shooting, according to police.
A law enforcement source identified the gunman as James von Brunn, 88, who is known to authorities as a white supremacist. On a website he apparently maintains, extolling a "Holy Western Empire", von Brunn says he served in the Navy during World War Two, worked for twenty years as an advertising executive and film producer in New York, and then became "an artist and author" living on Maryland's Eastern Shore.
Sergeant David Schlosser, a spokesman for the Park Police, said the security guard and the gunman were the only two persons hit by gunshots. He said the museum has been "completely secured and evacuated." 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."
Police initially identified the attacker's weapon as a shotgun, but D.C. Police Chief Cathy Lanier later said it appeared to be a rifle. The gunman "came into the entrance and immediately opened fire, striking one security guard," D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty said. "The gunfire was returned and the gunman was hit." Fenty said the gunman is in critical condition and the wounded security guard is in grave condition. The guard's name is not being released, he said. Fenty called the shooting "an extremely isolated incident" and said the security guards "performed exceptionally well and behaved exactly as they were supposed to." He praised "the heroism of the security guards." Lanier said the assailant appeared to be "a lone gunman who entered the museum and opened fire with what appears to be a rifle at this point." She said law enforcement authorities have not confirmed the identity of the gunman, despite media reports that he is a white supremacist from Annapolis.
10 June 2009
Oops is now a museum term
The Washington Post has a disturbing article by Debbi Wilgoren and William Branigan about another idiot with a gub:
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