MIWLAUKEE — Elias Rodriguez of Chicago remained behind bars Thursday night after prosecutors say the 31-year-old shot and killed two Israeli Embassy employees in Washington, D.C. late Wednesday night.

Investigators also said he was yelling, “Free Palestine!” after he was arrested. The Department of Justice confirmed Thursday it was looking into the fatal shooting as a hate crime and an act of terrorism.

“As I heard what he’d yelled out, I wasn’t shocked,” said Miryam Rosenzweig, the president and CEO of the Milwaukee Jewish Federation. “For 19 months, we’ve been sharing that this call and the hate speech that’s been said around the marches and these so-called peaceful protests have been a call for violence.”

Rosenzweig confirmed the Milwaukee Jewish Federation and other Jewish organizations continue to do whatever they can to heighten security.

“There has been an increase in security across the Jewish community since Oct. 7 [when Hamas attacked Israel in 2023],” Rosenzweig said. “We don’t expect it to go down in the near future. We’ve been in close contact with law enforcement and we want to make sure that our community knows that the Jewish institutions in town are safe, that we’re working with local, state and federal law enforcement and that we’re monitoring the situation to make sure we have a safe community to participate in.”

Watch the full interview above.