Israeli student stabbed in Brooklyn; attacker shouts 'kill the Jews'
Haredi student, 22, in stable condition after attack on Chabad headquarters in New York; police kill suspect, who had history of bipolar disorder.
A young haredi man was stabbed and wounded early Tuesday morning in a Chabad house in the Crown Heights neighborhood in Brooklyn, New York.
Calvin Peters, 49, can be seen on amateur video of the confrontation waving a knife in the Chabad-Lubavitch headquarters in Crown Heights at about 1:40 a.m. after police say he attacked Levi Rosenblat, who was studying inside, according to Chabad-Lubavitch spokesman Rabbi Motti Seligson. Rosenblat was stabbed in the temple, officials said, and was expected to survive.
A witness flagged down a patrol officer, who confronted the 49-year-old man and told him to put the knife down. He initially put it down, but picked it up again, police said. More officers responded and repeatedly ordered the man to drop the knife.
He refused and, with the knife in his hand, charged at one of the officers, who fired once, striking the man in the torso, police said.
Peters had a documented history of mental illness and had been arrested 19 times since 1982, most recently in 2006 for drugs, police said. He had also been to the Chabad-Lubavitch before, which is open to the public at all hours.
Detectives are investigating, but don't suspect terrorism, police said.
The 22-year-old Rosenblat was in stable condition, officials said.
Attorney Jeffrey A. St. Clair opened the Peters family's front door in a New York suburb and said the man had a history of bi-polar disorder.
"Calvin Peters was a loving and devoted father," he said. "And the family is quite frankly shocked and disappointed at what happened. Our prayers go out to the person that was injured. But we really ask that you respect our privacy and allow them to grieve."
St. Clair said there were no recent incidents that would have caused alarm. "No," he said. "Just total shock."
Assemblyman Dov Hikind, whose Brooklyn constituents are largely Orthodox Jewish, condemned the attack.
"I'm told that the attacker came earlier that evening, too. He was stalking the scene. Thank God he didn't inflict more harm nor do more damage to more people," Hikind said in an email statement.
"The Jews are easy prey for the hatred and incitement that is spreading around the world every moment," said Yaakov Hagoel, head of the Department for Activities in Israel and Countering Antisemitism at the World Zionist Organization.
"The stabbing of a Jew in the Chabad house is part of the significant uptick in violent anti-Semitism in France, Belgium, Europe as a whole, and of course, the United States. US authorities must wake up and begin to take a harder stance against anti-Semitism."
Itamar Eichner and the news agencies contributed to this report.
