[CNN]Shooting reported at Holocaust Museum in Washington

Hopefully just an isolated incident and isn't the start of new targets. Sad stuff either way.

 

Holocaust Museum Shooting ... Running Updates

2:09 PM Update: The latest news suggests that the gun was a 89 year old male.

2:13 PM Update: Shooter apparently has a record of connections with white supremacist groups. NBC is reporting that the he tried to raid the Federal Reserve building in 1981. Long history of anti-Semitic and white supremacist remarks, etc.

2:22 PM Update: This is a photo of James W. von Brunn, the suspect in today's shooting ...



This is from his bio, apparently written by himself or someone sympathetic to him: "In 1981 Von Brunn attempted to place the treasonous Federal Reserve Board of Governors under legal, non-violent, citizens arrest. He was tried in a Washington, D.C. Superior Court; convicted by a Negro jury, Jew/Negro attorneys, and sentenced to prison for eleven years by a Jew judge. A Jew/Negro/White Court of Appeals denied his appeal. He served 6.5 years in federal prison. (Read about von Brunn's "Federal Reserve Caper" HERE.) He is now an artist and author and lives on Maryland's Eastern Shore."

--Josh Marshall
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/ar...museum_shooting_running_updates.php?ref=fpblg

 

In keeping up with themes, should the title not have included "Christian White Supremacist Terrorist Shoots up Holocaust Museum in D.C." ?

I have to say, I am somewhat surprised these shootings have not been more commonplace in the past years.

 

The anti-abortion shooter has had his man in the White House for the past 8 years (or at least he believed he did). And, I'd imagine, having a black president would be just about enough to send any kooky white supremacist over the edge.

I expect more of this sort of thing to occur - the new administration is probably seen as the-end-of-the-world by all manner of extreme-right whackjobs.

 

and how much closer are we to repealing roe after those 6 years of republican-dominated d.c.? maybe they should take their fury out on those politicians who really care nothing about abortion (or gay marriage for that matter) only wanting to appease their base so they can continue to win re-election.

 

a.k.a., Dick Van Dyke?

 

delete... double post

 

Just sick...

 

Well, He still not one of the 'The most racist people in America '
according to some threads around here . . . .

Rocket River

 

i think we can say this was a terrorist act.

http://www.pollster.com/blogs/this_is_personal.php

[rquoter]This is Personal
By Mark Blumenthal

Regular readers will probably remember my that my father-in-law Frank Burstin, who passed away about a week before last fall's elections, was a survivor of the Auschwitz death camp. For that reason, as you may imagine, the news this afternoon about a shooting at Washington's Holocaust Museum hits pretty close to home for me and for my family.

But you don't know the half of it.

I have a special memory of Pop (as we knew him) from last summer. It was a few weeks before he received his cancer diagnosis, during what turned out to be his last visit to the Holocaust Museum. Because he lost his parents and all of his siblings to the Nazis, and because no grave site exists for any of his family, Pop made it a habit to visit the Museum at least once a year. It fulfilled for him the custom that many Jews practice of visiting the cemetery of loved ones once a year. I only got to accompany him on one of these visits, that one last year, along with my wife's nephew Jake.

I described him last year as "kind and optimistic soul," and he certainly was. But when he entered that museum, something changed. He was not unkind, but in that place, as I soon learned, he suffered no fools (nor anyone else).

We wandered into the museum, through the same doors and into the same foyer where shots rang out this afternoon. My wife had given us visitor passes that she receives as a member of the Museum. The lines were long, and it was not obvious which line we needed to stand in.

Pop was having none of it. He walked away from me and wandered up to the museum staffer standing at the head of the long line leading to the elevators that takes all visitors to the museum exhibits. I thought for a moment that Pop was going to ask directions. I was wrong.

He thrust out his arm in the direction of the staffer, displaying the number the Nazis tattooed on his arm at Auschwitz just a few inches from her face. Without making eye-contact and barely breaking stride, Pop kept walking. Understandably, the staffer barely blinked. She didn't make a move to stop him.

Pop kept walking right into the elevator that had just filled with the visitors that had been waiting in that long line. And even though the elevator was already quite crowded, he walked right in. Jake and I had to run past the guard to catch up. "Pop, Pop," I said, feeling a little embarrassed, hoping to talk him into at least waiting for the next elevator.

The staffer inside the elevator must have heard me, because he smiled, held the door and said with smile, "We have room for Pop. You guys too. C'mon in."

And up we went. I have been to the Holocaust Museum many times, but none as memorable as that visit.

About a month ago, in a conscious effort to carry on her father's tradition and to commemorate his birthday, my wife Helen paid her own solo visit to the Museum. She arrived at the end of a busy work day, in a rush, just a few minutes before closing time. Unfortunately, given the late hour, they had run out of the candles usually provided in the Hall of Remembrance for visitors to light and leave in the niches of the outer walls.

Already feeling emotional -- her dad had passed away just six months before -- she broke down sobbing.

A staffer nearby immediately came to her assistance, asking if she needed help. She explained, and the gentleman asked her to wait. He soon returned with a candle, explaining with a conspiratorial wink that he kept his own special supply for such emergencies.

The guards and staff at the Holocaust Museum have a special duty. The do more than just protect and operate one of Washington's many heavily trafficked museums. On a daily basis, they help open the doors to the elderly survivors of the atrocities of World War II. As my stories attest, they do it with a remarkable degree of kindness and professionalism.

As far as I know, the Holocaust Museum personnel that we encountered were not armed guards, though it is possible they were. But when I heard about the shooting this afternoon, and more specifically that at least one of the victims is a security guard now apparently in critical condition, it struck very close to home.

This is personal.

As far as I am concerned, the staff members of the Holocaust Museum are part of our family and the Museum itself is hallowed ground, and we pray for the recovery of the wounded guard. "Never take your guard force and security people for granted," William Parsons, the museum's chief of staff said on television a few minutes ago. Our family never will.

A very sad update: MSNBC just reported that the guard, Officer Steven Tyrone Johns, has passed away. We are all mourners tonight.[/rquoter]

 

Fox News - 2 minutes

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SMITH: There are people now, who are way out there on a limb. And I think they're just out there on a limb with the email they send us. Because I read it, and they are out there. I mean, out there in a scary place...I could read a hundred of them like this...I mean from today. People who are so amped up and so angry for reasons that are absolutely wrong, ridiculous, preposterous."

 

What is even more frightening is that the DHS was correct in its heavily criticized report on the rise of right wing extremism released back in April.

+ for the victims of this senseless act.

 

Should whites be racially profiled to help combat terrorism?

 

This guy is a right-wing? Did he publish a manifesto I didn't see or are you saying racist = right wing?

I don't see how this happened. Afterall it is illegal to carry around a loaded rifle in DC.

 

He had a record of storming into the Fed reserve building armed back in the 80's, and was one of the Obama lack of birth certificate conspiracy theory advocates.

I think it's safe to say he was right wing.

 

How does that = right wing? I think it points more firmly to clinically insane.

 

Extreme right wing groups don't believe the Obama is a citizen because of the gift certificate stuff. They are against the Fed Reserve system etc.

 

Going into a federal building with a gun is more insane than right wing.

 

The shooter was a neo-nazi, CaseyH. The Southern Poverty Law Center, an internationally renown organization for promoting tolerance, classified von Brunn as a right wing extremist.