Mass. students describe scene at Holocaust Museum shooting

(NECN: Alysha Palumbo, Boston, MA) - As a shooter opened fire in the Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C. on Wednesday, hundreds of students from the Boston area happened to be on field trips inside. Some even heard the gunshots echo through the building. Student Cody Allen said, "Yeah I heard them they were really loud because we were like legit, like around the corner… wow." <A HREF="http://www.necn.com/Boston/New-England/2009/06/11/Von-Brunns-New-England/1244721419.html" target="_Blank"><b>Von Brunn's New England connection</b></a> Cody Allen immediately called his mother and grandmother to tell them he was okay. Cody's grandmother Debbie Zywusko said, "I saw four missed calls-I called him and he goes where were you-he was almost in tears and I went oh my god what is the matter and he said don't you have the news on and I said no-and then he told me what happened." Cody's mother Denise Willis said, "I asked him if he was ok he said he was a little freaked out it was just very scary as a parent." Cody said it all happened so quickly. "We walked in the Holocaust museum and then we went down some stairs and around the corner," he said, "and we were just about to enter an elevator to go up to the third floor because we were in the basement but we heard like gunshots so everyone panicked and we ran." Cody's class from the Holton Richmond Middle School in Danvers wasn't the only group of students from the Boston area in the museum at the time of the shooting. Students from The Match Charter School in Boston and eighth graders from Swampscott were on a field trip there as well. Sandy Tenant's wife Cindy was a chaperone on the trip. Tenant said, "She said some of the students were pretty shook up and were calling their parents and it is a traumatic thing, you hear gun fire and the security people led them out a side door over a highway and into a field in the middle of a field trip." As for Cody, his grandmother remembers telling him how important it would be for him to visit the nation's capitol. Zywusko said, "He didn't want to the the last minute and I said oh you'll have a ball you will remember this trip for the rest of your life-well let me tell you after today I think he will."