05/25/2025
ANALYSIS: CAPITAL JEWISH MUSEUM KILLINGS
Flash to Bang. Granted, storms move fast. The less advanced warning there is, the faster you have to respond. But you don’t have to be a weatherman to predict lightning.
I don’t care what you are “for”, but I ask you to take a stand against violence.
Elias Rodriguez was educated, but he never learned that key, core principle.
Rodriguez has now been relegated to a Wikipedia post. He’ll soon be forgotten.
Not Sarah Milgrim or Yaron Lischinsky. Rodriguez’s senseless act may have extinguished their voices, but not their light. While the shooter is forgotten, Milgram and Lischinsky will be forever memorialized. So what?
Did we learn nothing from the 2024 (United Healthcare CEO) Brian Thompson murder?
Luigi Mangione lingered. Armed and pacing. He waited. There was an important event at a public venue. One everybody knew about. Mangione knew his target would be in attendance.
Rodriguez lingered. Armed and pacing. He waited. There was an important event at a public venue. One everybody knew about. Rodriguez knew it would be a “target rich” environment. Rodriguez waited outside as the young diplomat’s event ended at the Capital Jewish Museum in D.C.
This location was an NAI; named area of interest. An HVT; high value target.
Those factors alone should have warranted higher security and awareness.
Security needs to be active and passive. It’s legal for law officers and security personnel to contact anyone at any time.
There are no restrictions against walking up and saying, “Hello”. It gets you in close so that you can use your senses to draw better, more reasonable conclusions. The act of contacting this ‘pacing, waiting, anxious man’, alone may have pushed Rodriguez from his ambush position.
Reasonable suspicion is a lower standard than probable cause. If you add up the location, the event, significant past events and specific, atomic actions of Elias Rodriguez outside of the museum before the attack, a reasonable person would feel that there was enough information present to contact Rodriguez and at a minimum ask him a few questions.
We are a society that films everything. If you can film it, you can stop it. Intervention starts with curiosity. What is the most likely course of action that I am witnessing at this location? Hmm, if I see certain pre-event indicators, what would the most dangerous course of action be? Where would the attack have to come from? A lingering car in front of a clinic? A lingering man in front of a public event?
Assessing risk doesn’t have to be long, detailed and done by an expert in every situation. Sometimes, it can be done on the fly. A combination of the detailed, deliberate security plan in this instance, coupled with alert citizens and security personnel just before the attack could have found Rodriguez out and stopped- or altered his attack.
Your ventromedial pre-frontal cortex and your amygdalae (among other things) does a lot of this work for you. It tells you when something doesn’t seem right. When something doesn’t seem right, do something. At least SAY something. You spend enough time on social media conducting the postmortem on these types of incidents, yet what deliberate, significant steps did you take before it happened?
Security is everyone’s responsibility. Including the decedents.
You include every photo, every text, every witness statement, every theory in your after action reviews…yet who called ahead and asked if there was sufficient security at this event? Which of you queried the venue to ask if precautions were being taken?
Who told Sarah Milgrim or Yaron Lischinsky to have fun, but keep a sharp eye out for danger? Which of you took it upon yourselves to walk around outside the event just before it ended? Who said, I’ll take it upon myself to look around and ask myself, “What doesn’t fit?” and, “What’s this guy up to?”
Security is everyone’s responsibility. Stop approaching this as a hate crime or a terrorist act. Rather, use it as a lesson.
Understand that sometimes insecure, broken people do terrible scary things in the name of (you fill in the blank) and know that many times your awareness and vigilance can stop them. People telegraph their actions before an event occurs. Be vigilant and add extra care whenever the situation warrants.
Flash to bang.
May 25, 2025
Greg Williams
SSCNA Board Advisor
SSCNA Board Advisors Greg Williams and Brian Marren, the world’s foremost subject matter experts on Human Behavior Pattern Recognition and Analysis (HBPR&A). Their firm, Arcadia Cognerati, ( https://arcadiacognerati.com ), conducts training and consulting on strategies to prevent, thwart and defend against targeted attacks. They will show you how to increase the level of awareness in your community by investing in your people, rather than buying a product.
