Israel Embassy Staff Killed: Suspect Charged with Murder in Fatal DC Shooting

WASHINGTON, May 22 (Reuters) – A Chicago-born man arrested as the abandoned doubtable in the baleful cutting of two Israeli admiral advisers in Washington was answerable on Thursday in federal cloister with two counts of first-degree annihilation in a killing broadly accursed as an act of antisemitism.

Elias Rodriguez, 31, is accused of aperture blaze on a accumulation of bodies on Wednesday night as they larboard an accident for adolescent professionals and diplomats hosted by the American Jewish Committee, an advancement accumulation that fights antisemitism and supports Israel.

Rodriguez told badge on the scene, “I did it for Palestine, I did it for Gaza,” according to the charging documents. Witnesses anecdotal audition him chant, “Free Palestine” afterwards he was taken into custody.

The two victims addled by battery and dead were articular as Yaron Lischinsky, 30, and Sarah Lynn Milgrim, 26, a adolescent brace about to become affianced to be married.

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Friends and associates of advancement groups they belonged to said the brace were committed to architecture bridges amid Arabs and Jews in hopes of catastrophe action in the Middle East.
After the shooting, Israeli embassies about the apple anon stepped up security.

In accession to two counts of first-degree murder, Rodriguez was answerable in a six-page bent complaint with annihilation of adopted officials, causing afterlife with a firearm and absolution a firearm in a abomination of violence.

Interim U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro, anew appointed by President Donald Trump as the top federal prosecutor in Washington, said at a account conference the complaint adjoin Rodriguez constitutes a “death penalty-eligible case.”

“We are activity to abide to investigate this as a abhorrence abomination and as a abomination of terrorism,” Pirro told reporters.
U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi said beforehand that the doubtable was believed to accept acted alone.

At his aboriginal actualization in cloister on Thursday, the doubtable waived his appropriate to a apprehension hearing, and a basic audition in the case was set for June 18.

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Rodriguez said little during the proceeding except to answer, “I do” to questions from a federal court adjudicator about whether he accepted his rights.

The accuse were filed as FBI and badge board pored over credible writings and political affiliations of the suspect.

POSSIBLE MANIFESTO?

FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino acquaint on amusing media that board were “aware of assertive writings allegedly authored by the suspect” and hoped to anon accept updates apropos their authenticity.

Bongino’s annual appeared to accredit to a acclamation active with Rodriguez’s name that was acquaint to an bearding X annual on Wednesday night anon afore the shooting.

Posted with the appellation “Escalate For Gaza, Bring The War Home,” it accursed Israel’s killing of tens of bags of Palestinians back the October 2023 Hamas attacks, and discussed the chastity of “armed” action.

“In the deathwatch of an act bodies attending for a argument to fix its acceptation so here’s an attempt,” the certificate read. “The atrocities committed by Israelis adjoin Palestine baffle description and baffle quantification.”

Israel has faced abiding all-embracing accusation for its ascent Gaza aggressive offensive, while Jewish advancement groups accept warned of a acceleration in antisemitic incidents globally.
Investigators additionally delved into credible political affiliations of the suspect.

SUSPECT’S BACKGROUND

Rodriguez was already complex with a far-left accumulation in Chicago, the Party for Socialism and Liberation, according to a column from the accumulation on X. The accumulation said Rodriguez had a abrupt affiliation with a PSL annex that concluded in 2017 and was blind of any added acquaintance with him in added than seven years.

“We accept annihilation to do with this cutting and do not abutment it,” the alignment said.
Rodriguez was additionally articular in a 2018 bounded account address as a affiliate of the Chicago annex of a civic accumulation alleged ANSWER, an acronym for Act Now to Stop War and End Racism, which has organized demonstrations in adherence with Palestinians. ANSWER did not anon acknowledge to email and buzz messages.

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At the time of his arrest, Rodriguez formed at the healthcare nonprofit American Osteopathic Information Association, the alignment accepted in a account cogent accord for the victims.
He had additionally formed as an articulate history researcher at The HistoryMakers, a nonprofit committed to absorption African American stories, according to a now-deleted adventures on the group’s website, and was a agreeable biographer for technology firms.

Rodriguez was built-in and reared in Chicago and accelerating from the University of Illinois Chicago in 2018 with a bachelor’s amount in English.

According to the FBI affidavit, the doubtable flew to the Washington breadth from Chicago on Tuesday. On Wednesday night, he was apparent pacing alfresco the museum, little added than a mile (2 km) from the White House, anon afore the shooting, badge said.

Surveillance video footage showed Rodriguez battlefront several times at Lischinsky and Milgrim, again aptitude over them to blaze several added circuit afterwards they fell to the arena and afterwards Milgrim approved to clamber abroad and sat up, according to an FBI affirmation in the bent complaint. The apache paused to reload, again resumed firing, it said.

He again tossed abroad his gun, aloof into the building and was arrested there afterwards calling absorption to himself as the suspect, affairs out a red Palestinian-style keffiyeh bandage and declaring that he “did it,” the affirmation said.

Investigators recovered a 9mm blaster that he had purchased in Illinois bristles years ago, 21 spent carapace casings and a firearm annual at the scene, according to the complaint.

“These abhorrent D.C. killings, based acutely on antisemitism, allegation end, NOW!” he said in a bulletin on Truth Social. “Hatred and Radicalism accept no abode in the USA.”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said his affection ached for the families of the victims, “whose lives were cut abbreviate in a moment by an abhorrent antisemitic murderer.”

“We are attestant to the abhorrent amount of the antisemitism and agrarian activation adjoin the State of Israel,” he said on X, abacus that both “must be fought to the utmost.”

The cutting is acceptable to ammunition animosity in the United States over the war in Gaza amid supporters of Israel and pro-Palestinian demonstrators.

Conservative supporters of Israel led by Trump accept branded pro-Palestinian protests as antisemitic. His administering has bedfast protesters after allegation and cut off allotment to aristocratic U.S. universities that accept acceptable demonstrations.

Reporting by Sarah Lynch and Tom Polansek; Additional advertisement by Jaspar Ward, Andrew Goudsward, Emily Rose, Julia Harte, Joseph Tanfani, Karen Freifeld, Ryan Patrick Jones, Daniel Trotta, Matt Spetalnick, Doina Chiacu, Hatem Maher, James Mackenzie, Rachel More; Writing by Joseph Ax and Steve Gorman; Editing by Frank McGurty, Howard Goller and Daniel Wallis