James Von Brunn Kills Security Guard Stephen Tyrone Johns at Holocaust Memorial Museum

James Von Brunn, 88, opened fire with a rifle in the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum on Wednesday, killing security guard, Stephen Tyrone Johns, before being shot by other officers. Read more on James on Brunn, who apparently has a long history of ties to white supremacist groups.


James Von Brunn, an 88 year-old Maryland man who has a website called the Holy Western Empire, and has ties to Neo-Nazi’s and white supremacist groups.

James von Brunn has served six years in prison for attempting to make what he called a “legal, non-violent citizens arrest” of Federal Reserve board members in 1981. Of course Brunn blamed his sentencing on “a Negro jury, Jew/Negro attorneys” and “a Jew judge.”

“He has an extremely long history with neo-Nazis and white supremacists. He’s written extremely incendiary publications raging about Jews, blacks and the like.”

Von Brunn is from St. Louis, Missouri, a 1943 graduate of Washington University. He served as a Navy Officer in World War II. By the late 70’s Brunn had become a “hardcore neo-Nazi” .

In December 1981, angry at the “treacherous and unconstitutional” acts of the Federal Reserve, Von Brunn entered the central bank’s Washington headquarters with a pistol, a shotgun, a knife, and a fake bomb. Von Brunn claimed to have planted a bomb, forcing the evacuation of the building.

Von Brunn was sentenced to six years in prison on attempted kidnapping, second-degree burglary, assault and weapons charges.

Von Brunn’s trial dealt extensively with his “attitudes about black and Jewish people,” which his lawyer said were irrelevant to the charges he was facing.

Documents were read at trial in which von Brunn wrote, “Goal: to deport all Jews and blacks from the white nations,” among other racist statements.

Von Brunn has posted many hate-filled postings on his website and others. Most recently the messages questioned the authenticity of President Obama’s birth certificate, the subject of numerous conspiracy theories. Advocates of those theories imply that Obama was born overseas and therefore would be constitutionally ineligible to hold office.

Von Brunn is in critical condition Wednesday afternoon after being shot by a security guard at the museum.

Washington police and the FBI said the shooting appeared to have been the work of a single gunman.