Authorities on Thursday were investigating a brazen attack that killed two young Israeli embassy staff outside an event at the Jewish museum in downtownWashington DC, leaving the US capital in shock as world leaders condemned the “horrible” and “antisemitic” shootings.
Early on Thursday morning, federal agents descended on a Chicago apartment believed to be the suspect’s home. Officials have said the suspect was not on any security watchlists and there were no heightened security threats before the shooting. The firearm believed to be used in the killings was retrieved as well, officials said.
The US attorney general, Pam Bondi, said that US authorities believed the suspect acted alone. “We are doing everything we can to protect our entire community, and especially our Jewish community right now,” said Bondi, who was at the crime scene with the local US attorney, Jeanine Pirro. “It was horrific,” she added.
The killings occurred shortly after 9pm on Wednesday evening, outside the Capital Jewish Museum, where, according to officials, a gunman approached a group leaving an event hosted by the American Jewish Committee and opened fire at close range.
The victims, identified as Yaron Lischinsky, who grew up in Germany andIsrael, and Sarah Milgrim, a US citizen from Kansas, were a young couple about to be engaged, according to Yechiel Leiter, the Israeli ambassador to the US. Leiter told reporters Lischinsky had “purchased a ring this week with the intention of proposing to his girlfriend next week in Jerusalem”.
The suspect, identified as Elias Rodriguez, was observed pacing outside the museum before the shooting, the Metropolitan police chief, Pamela Smith, said. After opening fire, he walked into the museum, was detained by event security and began to chant “Free, free Palestine,” she said.
The flags at Israeli diplomatic missions around the world wereloweredto half-mast, as the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, ordered security to be stepped up following what hecalled“the horrifying antisemitic murder”. The attack comes asIsrael expanded its ground offensive in Gaza, as it faces growing international pressure, including from the US, to end its blockade of food, medicine and other supplies before the enclave falls into famine.
The shooting occurred in an area of the US capital crowded with federal buildings and embassies. The Capital Jewish Museum was steps from the FBI’s Washington field office. In a social media post, the FBI deputy director, Dan Bongino, said “early indicators are that this is an act of targeted violence”.
Leaders in the US and Israel have said the attack was part of what Netanyahu called “the terrible price of antisemitism and wild incitement against Israel”.
“When antisemitism is normalized, that’s where we start to see the real danger that results in the violence we saw last night,” Ted Deutch, the chief executive of the American Jewish Committee, which had put on the reception for young diplomats on Wednesday night, said in an interview on MSNBC. “Everyone has a role to play in making sure that doesn’t happen.”
In a social media post early on Thursday, Donald Trump wrote: “These horrible D.C. killings, based obviously on antisemitism, must end, NOW! Hatred and Radicalism have no place in the USA.”