A suspect has been charged with two counts of first-degree murder after two Israeli embassy staffers were fatally shot Wednesday night outside of the Lillian & Albert Small Capital Jewish Museum.
The Department of Justice is investigating the shooting as an act of terrorism and a hate crime, CNN reported. The victims, Sarah Milgram and Yaron Lischinsky, were embassy members and a couple.
The accused shooter is Elias Rodriguez, who faces several federal murder charges that carry the potential for the death penalty. Officials say that the accused gunman yelled “Free Palestine!” while being arrested Wednesday night.
Rodriguez is a 31-year-old from Chicago who appeared to have gone to DC for a work conference, the head of the FBI’s Washington field office told reporters Thursday afternoon. According to his LinkedIn account, Rodriguez most recently worked as an administrative specialist for the American Osteopathic Information Association. He also graduated from the University of Illinois Chicago and was a big part of the Chicago activist scene.
Rodriguez told police that he wanted to draw attention to the war in Gaza. He was inspired by a US airman who died last year after setting himself on fire outside the Israeli Embassy in Washington, DC, prosecutors said in court documents. Rodriguez called the US airman a “martyr.”
Rodriguez did enter a plea at his first court appearance on Thursday afternoon. He will remain in custody pending future court hearings as investigators dig into his background and reconstruct a timeline of Rodriguez’s time in DC leading up to the shooting, CNN reported.
