Alleged white supremacist opens fire in Holocaust Museum (4th Roundup)

Washington - A lone gunman with believed connections to white supremacist groups opened fire in the US Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington on Wednesday, killing a museum guard. Museum officials identified the guard as Officer Stephen Tyrone Johns, who had worked at the museum for six years. City and law enforcement authorities told reporters they could not confirm the gunman's identity or any connections to anti-Semitic groups, but media reports said he was believed to be known as white supremacist James W von Brunn. The shooting 'reminds us that we must remain vigilant against anti-Semitism and prejudice in all its forms,' US President Barack Obama said in a statement. 'No American institution is more important to this effort than the Holocaust Museum, and no act of violence will diminish our determination to honour those who were lost by building a more peaceful and tolerant world,' he said. The armed man carrying a long rifle entered the museum just blocks from the National Mall and Washington Monument shortly before 1 pm (1700 GMT) and immediately fired at armed security guards, Washington Police Chief Cathy Lanier told reporters. Two security guards returned fire and Johns and the gunman were wounded. Local media reports said a third person was hit by glass but the extent of those injuries are unknown. The museum will be closed Thursday and flags will be flown at half-mast in Johns' honor. The museum is normally heavily guarded, with guards both inside and outside and metal detectors to screen visitors. Security director Joseph Rosboschil said the museum receives occasional threats but there had been 'nothing significant of late.' Robsboschil also said the museum had more security measures than other Washington museums. Sara J Bloomfield, director of the museum, said this apparent act of intolerance and hatred was 'even more reason for this museum to exist.' Von Brunn has written numerous anti-Semitic articles posted online, including a book called Kill the Best Gentiles, which he calls 'a new hard-hitting expose of the Jewish conspiracy to destroy the white gene pool.' Von Brunn, on a website, claims to have served with the US military in World War II, worked for a New York advertising agency and belong to Mensa, the high-IQ society. The alleged gunman was in serious condition at a nearby hospital, Washington Mayor Adrian Fenty said. Tourist Mark Lippert who was visiting the museum told the German Press Agency dpa that he heard several loud pops ring out while he was in a nearby room inside the building. He and his fiancee visiting from Spring Valley, Illinois, saw children running into the exhibit hall and could tell from the looks on their faces that something was wrong, he said. Lippert pushed the emergency exit, which took several seconds to open. 'It was the longest 15 seconds of my life,' he said. Other tourists who were in the museum told dpa they were kept inside an exhibit by guards where they took shelter for about 20 minutes before leaving through the museum's emergency exit. Another group hid inside the museum's theatre for nearly an hour, where a Holocaust survivor was preparing to a give a speech. Charles Towater, 73, of Tampa, Florida, said he saw a body lying on the pavement outside the entrance as he approached the museum just before police arrived. Mayor Fenty stressed the gunman appeared to have acted alone and that there were no threats received by the museum prior to the incident. 'This is an extremely isolated incident,' he said, noting that the security guards reacted just as they were trained to do. 'In these days ... you never know when someone is going to grab a gun and use it in an inappropriate way.' The Council on American-Islamic Relations, a Muslim civil liberties and advocacy group, said in a statement that it condemned 'this apparent bias-motivated attack' and stands with the 'Jewish community and with Americans of all faiths in repudiating the kind of hatred and intolerance that can lead to such disturbing incidents.' The museum, funded by both private and government money, has had nearly 30 million visitors since its dedication in 1993 and works to increase awareness not only of the Holocaust but of contemporary humanitarian issues such as the genocide in Darfur.