Man screaming ‘I want to kill the Jew!’ shot by cops after stabbing student at Chabad-Lubavitch synagogue in Brooklyn (VIDEO)
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WARNING: GRAPHIC CONTENT
NYPD anti-terror officers swarmed Chabad-Lubavitch in Crown Heights after Israeli student Levi Rosenblatt, 22, was stabbed during prayer early Tuesday. Police fatally shot 49-year-old Calvin Peters after a tense confrontation.
NYPD Commissioner Bratton said, ‘We are very, very confident it's not a terrorist-related act at this stage.’
BY Joseph Stepansky
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS: Tuesday, December 9, 2014,
nydailynews.com
A man heard screaming “I want to kill the Jew!” stabbed a 22-year-old Israeli student in the face at the Brooklyn headquarters of the Lubavitcher movement before he was shot dead by police early Tuesday.
Cops repeatedly ordered the man, identified by police sources as 49-year-old Calvin Peters, to put down the nine-inch blade before they opened fire.
Peters initially complied, putting it on a table. But then he picked it up again and charged at the officers before he was shot in the stomach by Officer Robert Pagan, sources said.
“He was going towards the officer,” witness Yechi Hamlech, 19, said. “His eyes were bulging, he must have been on drugs.”
In startling video first posted by the Israeli news site 0404, an officer identified by sources as Timothy Donohue is heard yelling at Peters to put down the weapon.
"Drop the f-----g knife,” he can be heard yelling repeatedly.
Then a single shot rang out, hitting Peters in the stomach and ending the outrage at Chabad-Lubavitch World Headquarters on Eastern Parkway in Crown Heights.
Meanwhile, knife attack victim Levi Rosenblatt was rushed to Kings County Hospital where he was in stable condition, police said.
The incident immediately drew comparisons to bloody attack on an Orthodox-Jewish synagogue in Jerusalem last month by a pair of Palestinians that left four rabbis dead.
 Police gather in front of 770 Eastern Pkwy. in Brooklyn early Tuesday morning after an Israeli student was stabbed.
Rabbi Motti Seligson, a synagogue representative, said that multiple witnesses heard Peters screaming about killing Jews.
“He was heard saying, 'Kill the Jews,' or something to that effect," Seligson said.
But Police Commissioner Bill Bratton said this appeared to be the work of a troubled man with a long rap sheet.
“We are very, very confident it's not a terrorist-related act at this stage,” Bratton said. “There's no indication that the subject ... had any affiliation with any terrorist organization.”
Peters was emotionally disturbed and “has a history of acting out in other places,” said John Miller, the NYPD’s anti-terrorism czar.
But in light of the attack, and with the Israel in turmoil and Chanukah on the horizon, the NYPD is ramping up security at synagogues and other Jewish institutions across the city, Miller said.
“You will some enhanced coverage in terms of police presence at these locations,” Miller said.
The deadly drama began at 1:45 a.m. when Peters burst into the building and — without warning — jammed the knife into Rosenblatt’s head, police and witnesses said.
“I went over to the floor, I saw the teenager on the floor, his hair was bloody,” one witness said. “He was saying, 'Save me’."
Hamlech said he too rushed to Rosenblatt’s aid when he heard the young man’s screams.
“The whole side of his face is all stabbed up and is bloody and he was screaming for help," Hamlech recalled. "I told him to come down, I went outside with him and then these other guys started taking care of him.”
When he went back inside, he saw Peters with the knife in his hand.
Donohue, who is based at the center, was the first to confront Peters, sources said. He was quickly joined by two other cops, both with their guns drawn.
“The police were screaming, ‘Put down the knife, put down the knife’,” Hamlech said. “The guy, he looks at the police he says, 'Are you cool?' They said, ‘Put down the knife!’”
The video shows Peters putting down the knife and walking several feet away while one of the officers is seen holstering his weapon. But he pulled it out again when Peters went back to the knife.
“The cops told him to put down his knife, he wouldn't put it down, he started going towards the cops and the cops shot him,” Hamlech said.
 An NYPD cop aims his gun at the stabbing suspect during their tense confrontation.
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Peters looked out of it, he said.
“He was calm, he looked like maybe he was on heavy drugs, he was walking kind of from side to side,” Hamlech said.
A second video posted by 0404 shows the aftermath — Peters lying on the ground, conscious and moaning — as cops put him in handcuffs. He was rushed to Kings County, where he died at 3:15 a.m.
Police sources said Peters lived at a number of different addresses in Brooklyn as well as in Valley Stream, L.I. He also has a rap sheet stretching back on 1982 with 19 arrests in New York and Nassau County, sources said.
Most of Peters’ arrests were for drug possession, but he had also been arrested for arson and criminal possession of stolen property, the sources said.
Rosenblatt arrived in Brooklyn two weeks ago to study at the Chabad headquarters, witnesses said.
"He's a nice guy, a good guy," said Menzy Myhiol, 20, a student from Canada. “He was a regular student just doing his studies.”
A 25-year-old Israeli, who asked not to be identified, said he saw Peters casing the building an hour before the attack.
 A bloody handprint can be seen on a bench, with the victim's discarded yarmulkeh nearby, in the synagogue.
"He was looking around, he asked for a book," the witness said. "He looked not so much crazy, but different."
When the man returned, he was armed with a knife in his hand and anger in his voice.
"I will kill the Jew! I want to kill the Jew!" the witness heard the attacker yelling as he entered the 24-hour religious center.
"I never thought it would happen in New York," he told The News. "These things don't need to happen."
Rosenblatt’s blood-soaked yarmulke was still lying on the ground as cops continued their investigation Tuesday morning.
“Thank God he didn’t do more damage to more people,” Assemblyman Dov Hikind (D-Brooklyn) said. "While we don't have a precise motive yet in last night's contemptible attack, one thing is clear — we need greater security for our Jewish institutions."
Peters is the 180th person killed during a confrontation with on-duty NYPD officers since the death of Amadou Diallo in 1999, according to a study conducted by the Daily news.
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