Washington ? The son of the man accused of killing a security guard at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum said Sunday that his father had long burdened his family with his white supremacist views and that he wishes his father would have died in the shooting instead.

James von Brunn, 88, has been charged with first-degree murder in the death of 39-year-old Stephen T. Johns, who was black.

“I cannot express enough how deeply sorry I am it was Mr. Johns, and not my father who lost (his) life,” Erik von Brunn, 32, said in a statement to ABC News.

Authorities say von Brunn shot the guard in the chest with a vintage rifle after Johns opened the door for him. Von Brunn was shot in the face by guards and is expected to survive. A hearing is set for today in a D.C. federal court for a magistrate judge to hear about von Brunn’s health.