Man who rammed a car into NYC Jewish site had recently connected with Chabad community, police say
NEW YORK (AP) — A man who drove his car He recently tried to contact the Hasidic Jewish community at the Chabad Lubavitch world headquarters in New York City and was recorded on video dancing enthusiastically with the congregation during a recent visit to the site, police said.
Investigators were still trying to piece together what led 36-year-old Dan Sohail to repeatedly crash his car into the gates of the prestigious Hasidic Jewish center in Brooklyn on Wednesday night, but police charged him on Thursday with attempted assault as a hate crime based on the fact that the building is a Jewish institution.
“Earlier this month, Sohail also attended a social gathering at the same location,” New York Police Department Chief of Detectives Joseph Kenny said at a press conference, noting that a video of that meeting was circulating online.
In the video, Sohail is seen dancing with Orthodox men at the headquarters.
“We believe he was in Brooklyn last night to continue his attempt to connect with the Lubavitch Jewish community,” Kenny said.
Kenny said Sohail told police he lost control of his car because he was wearing “bulky boots,” but Kenny added that Sohail had cleared several blockades and cleared snow from the sidewalk before entering the building.
The complex, at 770 Eastern Parkway, includes a synagogue and offices and was packed with worshipers at the time, but no one was injured. Some doors of the building were damaged. No weapon was found in Sohail’s car.
Sohail’s father he told the New York Daily News She said Thursday that her son was considering converting to Judaism and was struggling with “mental issues.” The Forward, a media outlet focused on Jewish issues, interviewed a rabbi in New Jersey. The rabbi said Sohail attended a Purim service at Chabad last year and visited twice more to seek spiritual guidance.
“I was able to talk to him for a few minutes and saw that his condition was not completely stable,” Rabbi Levi Azimov said He told Forward. Another rabbi at a Jewish school in Carteret, New Jersey, where Sohail lived, told the Forward that he stopped by for afternoon prayers on Tuesday but began yelling after the service, saying he felt Chabad had let him down.
The accident happened on the 75th anniversary Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson He became a leader of the Lubavitch movement, causing immediate concern in the city. While Mayor Zohran Mamdani and the city’s police commissioner, Jessica Tisch, rushed to the scene to brief the media, authorities announced that security around places of worship in the city had been increased.
“This is extremely concerning, especially given the institution’s deep meaning and history for so many people in New York and around the world,” Mamdani said. “And today of all days.”
Chabad Lubavitch headquarters and synagogue in Brooklyn attract thousands of visitors each year. There is an almost constant police presence around the complex.
