Enough press about the murderer: let's get to know the hero [View All]

[Happyhippychick]

Guard Remembered as 'Soft-Spoken, Gentle Giant'

Colleagues called Stephen T. Johns "Big John," for he was well over 6 feet tall. But mostly friends recalled the security guard's constant courtesy and friendliness.

"A soft-spoken, gentle giant," said Milton Talley, a former employee of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, where Johns was killed yesterday in the line of duty -- shot, authorities said, by an avowed white supremacist who entered the museum with a rifle.

"A wonderful individual . . . a truly jovial human being," museum director Sara J. Bloomfield said on this morning on NBC's "Today" show.

Details of the shooting remained sketchy last night, but apparently the 39-year-old guard, who was armed with a .38-caliber revolver, did not have time to react when James W. von Brunn walked into the museum, according to police sources.

More here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/06/11/AR2009061101206_pf.html