Published: Thursday, June 11, 2009
Shooting suspect seen as angry racist
WASHINGTON -- James von Brunn, 88, a frustrated artist and an angry man, once tried to kidnap members of the Federal Reserve board, a "caper" thwarted when a guard captured him outside a board meeting carrying a bag stuffed with weapons.
Von Brunn, a white supremacist and Holocaust denier, describes the assault with apparent pride on his Web site, the source of fulmination against Jews and races other than his own.
He was sentenced in 1983 to more than four years in prison for attempted armed kidnapping and other charges in his Fed assault. He was released in 1989.
"The subject resides in my memory like old road-kill," he wrote. "What could have been a slam-bang victory turned into ignoble failure. Recalling all of this presents an onerous task. I am getting near the end of the diving board."
A self-described artist, advertising man and author living in Annapolis, Md., von Brunn wrote an anti-Semitic treatise, "Kill the Best Gentiles," that he said no one would publish. He decries "the browning of America" and claims to expose a Jewish conspiracy "to destroy the White gene-pool."
Public records show that in 2004 and 2005 he lived briefly in Hayden, Idaho, which for years was home to the Aryan Nations, a racist group run by neo-Nazi Richard Butler.
Von Brunn's biography on the artists' directory askart.com says his father, Elmer, was superintendent of Scullin steel mill of St. Louis, and their family, on both sides, migrated from Germany and Austria in 1845 or near that year.
Von Brunn's accounts of what shaped his character as a boy and young man are heavy with dark episodes blamed on Jews and other minorities. After each account, he draws a "moral."
Among them:
"Life and Death are opposite sides of the same coin. Fate flips the coin."
"Things to be proud of often involve high risk. You can't hide from death. It always finds you."
"It's better to be strong than right -- unless you like dying. Crowds hate good guys."
Von Brunn, a white supremacist and Holocaust denier, describes the assault with apparent pride on his Web site, the source of fulmination against Jews and races other than his own.
He was sentenced in 1983 to more than four years in prison for attempted armed kidnapping and other charges in his Fed assault. He was released in 1989.
"The subject resides in my memory like old road-kill," he wrote. "What could have been a slam-bang victory turned into ignoble failure. Recalling all of this presents an onerous task. I am getting near the end of the diving board."
A self-described artist, advertising man and author living in Annapolis, Md., von Brunn wrote an anti-Semitic treatise, "Kill the Best Gentiles," that he said no one would publish. He decries "the browning of America" and claims to expose a Jewish conspiracy "to destroy the White gene-pool."
Public records show that in 2004 and 2005 he lived briefly in Hayden, Idaho, which for years was home to the Aryan Nations, a racist group run by neo-Nazi Richard Butler.
Von Brunn's biography on the artists' directory askart.com says his father, Elmer, was superintendent of Scullin steel mill of St. Louis, and their family, on both sides, migrated from Germany and Austria in 1845 or near that year.
Von Brunn's accounts of what shaped his character as a boy and young man are heavy with dark episodes blamed on Jews and other minorities. After each account, he draws a "moral."
Among them:
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