October 2, 2026
WASHINGTON (AP) — The suspect in the fatal shootings of two Israeli Embassy employees was an active participant in Chicago's left-wing protest scene, speaking out against police violence and a proposed Amazon headquarters.
Elias Rodriguez, 31, was charged Thursday with the murder of foreign officials and other crimes in connection with the deaths of Israeli citizen Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Milgrim, an American, as they left an event at a Jewish museum. The couple had plans to become engaged.
He told police after his arrest, “I did it for Palestine, I did it for Gaza,” according to court filings.
Rodriguez lived in a modest 850-square-foot apartment on Chicago’s north side and worked as an administrative assistant at a medical trade group. He had no apparent criminal record.
In his activism, he protested police violence against minorities and the power of corporations. His online posts had recently become fixated on the war in Gaza, calling for retaliation against Israel.
Family members of Rodriguez and his defense attorney, Elizabeth Mullin, did not return messages seeking comment.
The FBI did not respond to questions about whether he was on the bureau’s radar before the shooting.
Social media accounts tied to Rodriguez suggest he had become increasingly focused over the last two years on the Israeli retaliatory offensive in Gaza.
An account on X that used a variation of a screen name Rodriguez had used on other sites, along with his given name and photo, frequently featured pro-Palestinian posts, including a video from an October 2023 protest in downtown Chicago against U.S. aid to Israel.
Last October, the account also reposted two videos of speeches by Hassan Nasrallah, a Lebanese cleric and a former leader of the Islamic terrorist group Hezbollah. Nasrallah had been killed two weeks earlier in an Israeli airstrike.
Less than an hour after the shooting in Washington on Thursday night, the X account posted, “Escalate For Gaza, Bring The War Home,” along with screen grabs of a nearly 1,000-word essay signed with Rodriguez's name. It was not immediately clear whether Rodriguez, who was in police custody at the time, had used a feature on X to schedule the release of the post in advance or if another person might have had access to the account.
Rodriguez’s employer, the American Osteopathic Information Association, issued a statement Thursday expressing shock and saying it would cooperate with investigators.
“As a physician organization dedicated to protecting the health and sanctity of human life, we believe in the rights of all persons to live safely without fear of violence,” the group said.
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