A Chicago man has been indicted on federal hate crime and murder charges in the deaths of two Israeli Embassy staffers, according to court documents released on Wednesday. As detailed by the Chicago Sun-Times, Elias Rodriguez is facing nine counts following the May shooting outside a Jewish museum in Washington. Among the charges is a hate crime resulting in death, which carries the possibility of the Justice Department seeking the death penalty.
Rodriguez is accused of the calculated execution of Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Milgrim, a couple soon to be engaged, after an event at the museum. Authorities report that he flew in from Chicago with a handgun in his checked baggage and even purchased a ticket to the museum event mere hours before it commenced. After the shooting, Rodriguez was heard shouting "Free Palestine" and later told police, "I did it for Palestine, I did it for Gaza," signaling a potential antisemitic motive behind the attack, according to a PBS NewsHour article.
The indictment against Rodriguez was the result of prosecutors bringing the case before a grand jury. Proving that antisemitism was a motivating factor is now a task for the prosecutors since, the hate crimes charges were appended after the initial charges of murder of foreign officials and other crimes.
Witnesses recounted Rodriguez pacing outside the museum before initiating the attack, and surveillance footage captured him firing additional shots as the victims lay on the ground – actions described by officials as methodical and deliberate. After the incident, he proclaimed inside the museum, "I did it," and lauded a previous act of protest against the Israeli Embassy, calling an Air Force member who self-immolated "courageous" and a "martyr." An attorney for Rodriguez had not provided a comment at the time of the reporting, states the Sun-Times.
