Police arrest driver who slammed his car into Chabad headquarters

A police car drives through Brooklyn, Dec. 16, 2022. AP Photo/Julia Nikhinson, File

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CROWN HEIGHTS — POLICE ARE INVESTIGATING WHY A MAN REPEATEDLY SLAMMED HIS CAR into the Chabad World Headquarters on Eastern Parkway on Wednesday night, in what the NYPD is calling a possible hate crime.

There were no injuries reported as of press time Thursday morning, and the driver, who was wearing shorts in frigid weather, was arrested on the scene. The Associated Press and Daily News reported that the driver rammed his car repeatedly into a door of a building that is part of the 770 Eastern Parkway complex.

Witnesses who were present posted on social media that the driver reversed his vehicle and then struck the building a number of times. Pictures and a video posted on X showed a black Honda Accord sedan with partially-blurred New Jersey plates on an icy driveway leading to doors below street level. People in the building for daily evening prayers were evacuated.

The incident took place on the 75th anniversary of the date that Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson became the leader of the Chabad-Lubavitch movement, which aims to renew interest in religious Judaism. Schneerson established an outreach network of religious, educational and social service programs to help Jewish survivors of the Holocaust.

The 770 Eastern Parkway complex also has strong Brooklyn history: Originally constructed in 1933 as a medical building, it became part of Chabad in 1940.

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