The police said a man was arrested after repeatedly crashing a car into the Chabad Lubavitch world headquarters in Brooklyn while people were gathered for prayer on Wednesday night. Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch said the driver struck a door of a building in the complex, then reversed and struck it several more times, damaging parts of the site. Tisch said no one was injured.
Mayor Zohran Mamdani said the crash was “intentional,” and described it as “deeply alarming, especially given the deep meaning and the history of the institution to so many in New York and around the world.” Mamdani’s comments framed the incident as more than a traffic accident, even as Tisch said investigators were still gathering information.
Tisch said it was too early in the investigation to speculate on the driver’s motives. She said the incident is being investigated as a possible hate crime. She also said no bombs or other weapons were found in the car that hit the building.
Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez said the crash was “disturbing and unacceptable.” In a post on the social platform X, Gonzalez said his office is working closely with the NYPD to ensure justice is done and the community is safe, while adding that no one was hurt.
Chabad Lubavitch spokesperson Motti Seligson said some of the doors were damaged in the crash. The headquarters and synagogue, commonly referred to as 770 after Eastern Parkway, receives thousands of visitors each year and includes multiple adjacent structures in a Gothic Revival complex that is widely recognized by adherents of the movement.
Investigators said the incident happened on the 75th anniversary of the date Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson became the leader of the Lubavitch movement. Schneerson died in 1994 but remains revered globally, and the headquarters has long had a near-constant police presence around 770 Eastern Parkway.
The headquarters has also been at the center of other episodes involving violence and tensions in Crown Heights, the Brooklyn neighborhood where it is located. In 1991, the site was at the epicenter of the Crown Heights riots, when Black residents attacked Jews after a child was killed by a car traveling in Schneerson’s motorcade. In 2014, a disturbed man entered the synagogue and stabbed a rabbinical student before being shot dead by police.