Jewish Museum killings show how hard it is to stop radicalized lone wolf attacks

The killing of two Israeli Embassy staffers is the latest in a string of targeted killings motivated by political or social events.

On a darkened sidewalk outside the Capital Jewish Museum, he walked past the young couple, then shot them both point-blank in the back. When the woman tried to crawl away, an FBI affidavit says, he reloaded his weapon and fired at her again and again.

“Free Palestine,” the man shouted after walking into the building and waiting to be arrested by police.

The brutal killing of two Israeli Embassy staffers in downtown Washington on Wednesday night raises the kind of question that haunts law enforcement officials and experts.

Of all the people seething with anger on the far left and the far right over hot-button political and social issues, who among them will move from anger to violence?

“It’s virtually impossible” to identify them, said Gregg McCrary, a former FBI profiler. “It’s not trying to find the needle in the haystack. It’s trying to find which piece of hay is going to become a needle.”