NEW YORK — New York Police said Dan Sohail, 36, was charged Thursday with attempted assault as a hate crime after he drove a car into the Chabad Lubavitch world headquarters in Brooklyn, damaging doors but injuring no one, according to police and city officials.
Police said the crash happened Wednesday night at the complex at 770 Eastern Parkway, which houses a synagogue and offices and was filled with worshippers at the time. Officials said some of the doors were damaged and that investigators found no weapons in Sohail’s vehicle.
At a news conference, New York Police Chief of Detectives Joseph Kenny said Sohail had recently tried to connect with the Lubavitch Jewish community. Kenny said Sohail told police that he lost control of his car because he was wearing “clunky boots,” while also saying Sohail removed blockades and cleared snow from a sidewalk before driving into the building.
Kenny also described prior interactions between Sohail and the community. He said Sohail attended a social gathering earlier this month at the same location, and he pointed to video circulating online that appears to show Sohail dancing with Orthodox men inside the headquarters.
Investigators were still determining what prompted Sohail to ram the doors repeatedly, Kenny said. Police charged Sohail on Thursday after deciding the case met the criteria for a hate-crime enhancement because the building is a Jewish institution.
City officials moved quickly after the incident, with Mayor Zohran Mamdani and Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch rushing to the scene to brief the media. Mamdani called the attack “deeply alarming,” saying it was especially troubling given the “deep meaning and the history of the institution to so many in New York and around the world,” and he noted it occurred “on today of all days.”
The crash occurred on the 75th anniversary of Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson becoming the leader of the Lubavitch movement, a date that brought renewed attention to the Chabad headquarters, which draws thousands of visitors each year. Officials said there is a near-constant police presence around the complex.
Kenny did not provide a motive beyond the account of Sohail’s attempts to connect with the community and the police characterization of the charge. Sohail’s father told the New York Daily News that his son had been considering converting to Judaism and that he struggled with “mental problems,” while The Forward reported that rabbis described Sohail as having attended services and sought spiritual guidance.
In the separate reports, Rabbi Levi Azimov, interviewed by The Forward, said he spoke briefly with Sohail and saw he was “not exactly stable.” Another rabbi at a Jewish school in Carteret, New Jersey, where Sohail lived, told The Forward that Sohail dropped by for afternoon prayers on Tuesday but began yelling after the service, according to the report.