Shooting at National Holocaust Museum (Update)
I have no idea what this gunman’s (James W. von Brunn) problem was, but he was on the radar of the Southern Poverty Law Center for a long time. It appears that he has ties with white supremacist groups and also neo-Nazi groups. (Is there a difference?) He reportedly has a website (now not available) with lots of ramblings about Jews and Negroes.
It seems as if the election of President Barack Obama has allowed Pandora’s box to open and all the crazies have fallen out of the box. There was the cop shooting in Pittsburgh. The shooter had some bizarre conspiracy theory. We had the shooting of Dr. Tiller in Kansas by an anti-abortion terrorist. We had some guy in Utah threaten the President in front of a bank teller. There may be a pattern here.
I am extremely saddened that somebody had to die before we could stop this hatemonger. Many news outlets are reporting that the security guard, 39-year-old Stephen Tyronne Johns, was killed. Johns had worked at the Holocaust Memorial Museum for over six years. DK has a nice post saluting Mr. Johns.
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From the Southern Poverty Law Center:
Von Brunn is the author of the 1999 book, “Kill the Best Gentiles,” a racist and anti-Semitic tome that argues that whites are seeing “today on the world stage a tragedy of enormous proportions: the calculated destruction of the White Race and the incomparable culture it represents. Europe, former fortress of the West, is now over-run by hordes of non-Whites and mongrels.” A raging anti-Semite, von Brunn blames “The Jews” for the destruction of the West. The book is dedicated to prominent neo-Nazis and racists including Revilo Oliver and Wilmot Robertson.
In 2003, AP reported that von Brunn had painted a portrait of Rear Adm. John Crommelin, a raging anti-Semite who was a close associate of neo-Nazi William Pierce, whose book The Turner Diaries inspired Timothy McVeigh’s bombing of the Oklahoma City federal building.
On his website, von Brunn also claims that in 1981, while wearing a “London Fog raincoat to conceal his weapons,” he attempted to put the whole Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve under “legal, non-violent citizens-arrest.” He wanted “to bind their hands and persuade them to appear on television.” The website says he was sentenced to 11 years for his actions. (more…)
Update from Political Animal:
Fox News spent much of April hyperventilating about a report from the Department of Homeland Security, warning of possible threats posed by violent radicals, specifically from anti-abortion and anti-Semitic extremists.
The DHS report, which Republicans spent weeks trying to exploit for partisan gain, looks considerably different now. On Fox News this afternoon, while the story at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum was still unfolding, Shep Smith referenced the memo, saying he remembered the report “warning, ‘look out for crazy extremists out there, about to do weirdness,’ and here we are.”
Catherine Herridge, a domestic security correspondent for the Fox News, said this is “an excellent point to bring up.” She added, “[W]e have to now see those two intelligence assessments that were released by Homeland Security earlier this year — one dealt with left-wing extremists, the other dealt with right-wing extremists — you have to see them in a somewhat different light.”
Greg Sargent added, “If this gunman proves to be an anti-government zealot and white supremacist, there will be tons of cable chatter and mea culpa-ing to the effect that the DHS was doing exactly what it was supposed to be doing in issuing that report. Right?”
We’ll see.
Shep Smith added that the DHS report “was a warning to us all, and it appears now they were right.”