On Wednesday, 39-year-old security guard Stephen Tyrone Johns died at George Washington Hospital after a gunman shot him at the U.S. Holocaust Museum.
Johns was working at the museum’s entrance, a half mile from the White House when police say 88-year-old white supremacist James Von Brunn of Maryland walked in and with a small caliber rifle opened fire.
Johns had served as a security guard at the museum for 6 years.
“He’s just a beautiful person,” said Johns’ mother Jacqueline Carter. “He liked his job and he worked a lot. It would be just like him to try to protect people from harm,” she said.
“I was just so shocked that for all these years he carried that level of hatred,” Carter said. “And I’m just so sorry that he had to unleash it on my son. I would hate for him to have unleashed it on anybody.”