A troubled man who once sought “guidance” from Jewish leaders was arrested after he repeatedly rammed his car into a Brooklyn synagogue Wednesday night and bizarrely claimed “it slipped,” according to shocking video and sources.
The gray Honda Sedan with New Jersey plates was seen in footage circulating on social media backing up and plowing into a side entrance of Chabad Lubavitch World Headquarters at least four times during a holy celebration that attracted thousands of congregants from around the world to the Crown Heights area.
Police responded to the Eastern Parkway building for a “motor vehicle collision” at about 8:45 p.m., and the NYPD’s hate crime task force is investigating the incident as a hate crime, NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch announced at a press conference late Wednesday.
Officers found the car had crashed into the doors of a sloped driveway at the synagogue, authorities said.
Video of the incident shows that the doors were knocked off their hinges.
The driver eventually exits the car and snaps as witnesses huddle nearby, the footage shows.
“I dunno, it slipped! It slipped, you f–king a–hole!” the driver hissed at a Jewish man while gesturing wildly to his car.
The bystanders identified the man as the driver to police, and he was swiftly taken into custody, according to the video.
The NYPD bomb squad responded to the scene and found no explosives in the vehicle, Tisch added.
The driver claimed to cops that he suffered some type of mechanical issue and did not make any sort of terroristic statements after he was taken into custody, sources said.
Multiple witnesses told The Post that the driver was lurking outside the Brooklyn Chabad before he rushed the entrance with his car and that he is the same man they’d seen at other Chabad locations in New Jersey in recent months.
“He was always asking people for help. They called the police on him before,” one witness said.
One source recalled seeing the man at a Garden State synagogue in November “looking for spiritual guidance.”
“He was very learned – he knew a lot about the Bible and Judaism. He was having a hard time with life,” they said.
He was frequently dodgy about his connections with the Jewish faith. In different instances, he claimed that his mother was Jewish, then “pretended to be Jewish” himself, another source said.
The driver even went to a yeshiva in New Jersey on Tuesday, possibly trying to arrange a conversion – but was denied, sources said.
Yaacov Behrman, the Chabad’s spokesperson, told The Post that the synagogue was packed with worshippers celebrating Yud Shevat, a holy day marking the 75th anniversary of the current rebbe’s leadership.
“There are thousands of students here and tens of thousands of visitors in the neighborhood. It’s a very, very important day on the Chabad calendar and the synagogue was very full at the time,” he said.
Behrman said that he believes the crash was “intentional” with “biased motivation.”
“This is a very serious incident – it’s very frightening. We know how dangerous it is to be Jewish today worldwide. We’re concerned about what this person intended to do, and we’re waiting for assurances from the police department that the area is safe,” said Behrman.
The suspect was standing outside the Chabad in below-freezing weather wearing just shorts, a zipped-open hoodie, and a T-shirt before he got behind the wheel to ram into the building, a 20-year-old student, Shlomo, said.
“He seemed a little not with it, you know, because it’s below zero over here, and he was wearing shorts and like a T-shirt, and open hoodie, and like just standing there, outside the synagogue for at least 15, 20 minutes,” he said.
The synagogue was evacuated after the crash. There were no injuries, according to police and community leaders.
The NYPD will “significantly increase” security around houses of worship throughout all five boroughs out of an abundance of caution, Tisch told reporters.
New Yorkers can expect to see an “enhanced uniformed presence” of specialized controls, counterterrorism resources, and bomb squad deployments around religious institutions where appropriate, she said.
Mayor Zohran Mamdani, who noted that the driver’s actions were intentional in an X post, joined Tisch at the scene late Wednesday night.
“I am relieved that no one was injured in this horrifying incident. This is deeply alarming, especially given the deep meaning and the history of the institution to so many in New York and around the world,” Mamdani said during the press conference.
“Any threat to a Jewish institution, or a place of worship, must be taken seriously. Antisemitism has no place in our city. The violence or intimidation against Jewish New Yorkers is unacceptable,” Hizzoner added.
New York Attorney General Letitia James — who previously served as a city council member representing the 35th Council District, including Crown Heights — said her office will also work with the NYPD to investigate the incident.
“I know this community very closely and deeply. They are part of my family, and I am blessed, and this community is blessed that no one was injured,” James told reporters.
“This was a holiday, a Chabad holiday, and there were thousands of individuals who came to 770 Eastern Parkway headquarters from all over the world,” she said.
https://nypost.com/2026/01/28/us-news/car-rams-into-entrance-of-nyc-synagogue-driver-arrested-video/
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.