A gunman who killed two people outside a Jewish museum in Washington on Wednesday was initially mistaken for a victim of the shooting and allowed into the building, witnesses said.
“We heard gunshots and then a man comes in and he looks really distressed. People are talking to him and trying to calm him down,” Katie Kalisher, who said she was inside the Capital Jewish Museum when the attack happened, told US media.
“Eventually, he comes over to where I was seated, and I was literally like ‘do you need any water? Are you OK?’”
Witness Yoni Kalin said that a security guard “happened to let this guy in” the building.
“I guess they were thinking that he was a victim,” he said.
“He was in shock, and you know, some of the people at the event brought him water. They sat him down. ‘Are you OK? Were you shot? What happened?’ And he’s like ‘somebody call the cops’.”
The man was then detained after he produced a Palestinian keffiyeh scarf from his bag and claimed responsibility for the shooting, the witnesses said.
“‘I did it. I did this for Gaza’,” Kalisher quoted him as saying.
Police identified the suspected shooter as Elias Rodriguez, 30, from Chicago.
Israel’s foreign ministry named the victims as Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Lynn Milgrim, who both worked at the Israeli embassy in Washington.
Israel’s Ambassador to the United States Yechiel Leiter told reporters the young staffers were a couple and that Lischinsky was planning to propose to Milgrim.
