Driver faces hate crime charge after allegedly crashing into Chabad Jewish center in New York
A car crashed into the Chabad-Lubavitch World Headquarters in Brooklyn on Wednesday evening. (WABC)
(BROOKLYN) — A New Jersey man is facing attempted assault as a hate crime and other charges after police said he repeatedly drove his car into the back of Chabad World Headquarters in Brooklyn.
Police were already assigned to a detail at the Chabad in Brooklyn’s Crown Heights neighborhood when they heard a commotion in the building’s main entrance Wednesday evening, New York City Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch said. When officers responded, they saw a car strike the rear door, reverse and then strike the door again.
Video showed the suspect, 36-year-old Dan Sohail, get out of his Honda Accord after the crash and tell the crowd, “I dunno, it slipped! It slipped, you f—— a——!” Sohail appeared to spit at the crowd as NYPD officers led him toward their police cruiser.
No one was hurt but the building was evacuated as a precaution.
“The hate crime right now is that he basically attacked a Jewish institution,” NYPD Chief of Detectives Joseph Kenny said. “He knew it was a synagogue.”
Kenny said Sohail visited the Chabad World Headquarters previously before he returned Wednesday night.
According to Jewish community leaders, Sohail told police he had been to synagogues in New York and New Jersey in recent months, asking how he could convert and looking for spiritual guidance. They said he seemed like he had studied Judaism as a way to deal with the problems he was having in life.
No explosives or other devices were found in the suspect’s car, police said.
The incident occurred during a Chabad holiday, when thousands of people from around the world were gathered at the headquarters, New York Attorney General Letitia James told reporters.
The Anti-Defamation League of New York and New Jersey said in a statement that it was “deeply disturbed.”
At a news conference, New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani called it a “horrifying incident” and said “antisemitism has no place in our society.”
Mohsen Mahdawi, a Columbia University student and Palestinian activist, who was arrested by US immigration authorities in mid-April 2025, attends the inauguration ceremony at City Hall in New York, United States, on January 1, 2026. (Selcuk Acar/Anadolu via Getty Images)
(NEW YORK) — For the second time in a little more than a week, attorneys have announced that an immigration court has terminated deportation proceedings against a pro-Palestinian student after Secretary of State Marco Rubio claimed they posed a threat to foreign policy.
According to a letter filed in court, attorneys for Mohsen Mahdawi, the Columbia University student who was detained at his naturalization interview in April, a judge has found that the Department of Homeland Security “did not meet its burden of proving by clear and convincing evidence” that he is removable.
It comes after an immigration court terminated removal proceedings against Tufts University Ph.D. student Rümeysa Öztürk. Her attorneys announced the order in a letter to the federal judge overseeing the case challenging her detention on Feb. 9.
For Mahdawi’s case, immigration judge Nina Froes appears to have based her decision on the finding that DHS failed to authenticate a memo allegedly signed by Rubio claiming Mahdawi was a threat to U.S. foreign policy.
Mahdawi’s attorneys have argued that, like other pro-Palestinian demonstrators, organizers and students, he was being targeted for his constitutionally protected speech.
Öztürk, like Mahdawi, was also labeled a foreign policy risk by Rubio in a memo.
Both cases can be appealed by the Trump administration, so their habeas petitions will likely continue to play out in federal court.
“I am grateful to the court for honoring the rule of law and holding the line against the government’s attempts to trample on due process,” Mahdawi said in a statement. “This decision is an important step towards upholding what fear tried to destroy: the right to speak for peace and justice.”
“In a climate where dissent is increasingly met with intimidation and detention, today’s ruling renews hope that due process still applies and that no agency stands above the Constitution,” he added.
In response to a request for comment about both cases, the Department of Homeland Security sent a previous statement about Mahdawi and said: “It is a privilege to be granted a visa or green card to live and study in the United States of America. When you advocate for violence, glorify and support terrorists that relish the killing of Americans, and harass Jews, that privilege should be revoked, and you should not be in this country. No activist judge, not this one or any other, is going to stop us from doing that.”
Mahdawi was detained in Vermont last spring during his citizenship interview. Arguing that he should continue to be detained, lawyers for the Trump administration pointed to a 2015 FBI investigation, in which a gun shop owner alleged that Mahdawi had claimed to have built machine guns in the West Bank to kill Jews.
However, the FBI closed that investigation and Mahdawi was never charged with any crime, a point a federal judge highlighted when he ordered Mahdawi’s release.
In response to the government’s allegations against him, Mahdawi and his lawyers have firmly refuted allegations that he ever threatened Israelis or those of the Jewish faith. He told ABC News he has been advocating for peace and protesting against the war in Gaza.
“So for them to accuse me of this is not going to work, because I am a person who actually has condemned antisemitism,” Mahdawi said. “And I believe that the fight against antisemitism and the fight to free Palestine go hand in hand, because, as Martin Luther King said, injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”
Öztürk was detained in March by masked federal agents, and the arrest was captured on camera. Attorneys representing her said she was targeted, like other high-profile arrests of students, for her Pro-Palestinian views, specifically, for co-authoring an Op-Ed in the student paper in March 2024 calling on the school’s administration to take steps to “acknowledge the Palestinian genocide.”
A federal judge ordered her release in May.
“Today, I breathe a sigh of relief knowing that despite the justice system’s flaws, my case may give hope to those who have also been wronged by the U.S. government,” Öztürk said in a statement on Feb. 9. “Though the pain that I and thousands of other women wrongfully imprisoned by ICE have faced cannot be undone, it is heartening to know that some justice can prevail after all.”
(MIAMI COUNTY, Ind.) — A Vietnamese immigrant died in government custody last week, according to a notification sent to lawmakers from Immigration and Customs Enforcement, marking the latest detainee death during the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown.
Tuan Van Bui, a 55-year-old immigrant, died at the Miami Correctional Center in Indiana.
He is the 46th person to die in federal custody during the current Trump administration.
In its notification, ICE said that “onsite staff discovered Bui unresponsive and immediately initiated life-saving measures, including CPR. Staff immediately contacted emergency services personnel, who swiftly responded to the scene and initiated advanced life support interventions.”
The cause of death is under investigation.
ICE officials said that Bui was ordered removed by an immigration judge in 2005 and that he had been arrested “over a dozen times on charges including robbery, theft, assault, criminal conspiracy, reckless endangerment, possession of a controlled substance with intent to distribute/manufacture, carrying firearms, resisting arrest, and DUI.”
Court records show Bui filed a habeas petition challenging his detention in February. A district judge responded to the petition the day after Bui died, ordering the government to detail its plans for his removal by April 6. The government filed a status report on Monday, after Bui died, but the contents of that report are not public because the habeas petition is sealed.
According to an ABC News analysis of ICE data and the number of detainee deaths provided to Congress, the first 14 months of the second Trump administration represent the deadliest period for the federal detention system in recent years, with the exception of 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic contributed to a spike in deaths.
In these photos released by the University of South Florida Police Department, Zamil Limon and Nahida Bristy are shown. (University of South Florida Police Department)
(TAMPA, Fla.) — The remains of one of the two missing University of South Florida doctoral students were discovered by investigators Friday and his roommate was taken into custody, authorities said.
Joseph Maurer, of the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office, told reporters that investigators found the remains of Zamil Limon on the Howard Frankland Bridge in Tampa Friday morning. Investigators have been searching for Limon and fellow USF doctoral student Nahida Bristy since they went missing on April 16.
“We are still actively searching for Nahida,” he told reporters during a news conference Friday.
Maurer said investigators received a 911 call for a domestic violence disturbance around 9 a.m. at a residence where Limon’s roommate, Hisham Abugharbieh, had barricaded himself.
Abugharbieh was previously interviewed by police during their investigation into the disappearances, Mauer said.
Following a brief standoff, the suspect surrendered, Maurer said.
Abugharbieh is being charged with several counts, including tampering with evidence, failure to report death and domestic violence, according to Maurer.
The cause of Limon’s death is being determined, Maurer said. He had no further details about Bristy’s condition.
Limon and Bristy, both 27, were last seen at separate locations in the Tampa area on April 16, according to the USF Police Department.
On Thursday, officials received new information to warrant upgrading their status from missing to endangered, which indicates they are at risk of physical injury or death, the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office said.
The sheriff did not provide any more details about the investigation or search efforts.
Limon and Bristy are friends, and a mutual acquaintance reported them missing, campus police said.
Limon, who was pursuing a degree in geography, environmental science and policy, was last seen at his Tampa residence at approximately 9 a.m. on April 16, according to police.
Bristy, who is studying chemical engineering, was last seen at the USF Tampa campus at the Natural & Environmental Sciences Building at approximately 10 a.m. that day, police said.
Anyone with information on her whereabouts is urged to call the University of South Florida Police Department at 813-974-2628.
-ABC News’ Meredith Deliso contributed to this report.
