"At 12:40 p.m. on June 10th 2009, a man stepped through the doors of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum. He took two paces, lowered his rifle at a security guard and, before anyone could react, opened fire in a popular national landmark.
The guard, who did not have time to draw his gun, fell bleeding and fatally wounded to the polished floor. Other guards fired back, cutting down the assailant. Terrified patrons, many of them children, dived for safety. And what moments before had been a bright weekday in June became a tableau of violence.
As described by bystanders and authorities, the attack inside the famed Holocaust museum turned the crowded building and Washington’s nearby tourist-thronged Mall into a scene of fear and chaos, with black-clad SWAT teams, hovering helicopters and racing emergency vehicles. Stunned witnesses described a fusillade of gunfire — five shots or more — the blood-streaked floor and the screams of frightened visitors inside the museum and on the street."
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