New York Police officers arrest a man after a brawl over a secret tunnel at Chabad Lubavitch HQ in Crown Heights.
Photo courtesy of Bruce Schaff via AP
A number of people were arrested in Crown Heights on Monday night after a group of men tried to stop construction workers from filling in a secretly-dug tunnel at Chabad Lubavitch Headquarters.
According to the NYPD, cops were called to 77o Eastern Parkway after a “disorderly group” illegally entered the building by breaking down a wall. Videos posted on social media show police struggling with a large group of Hasidic Jewish men inside the synagogue beneath Chabad HQ, with the tunnel — apparently carved into stone and dirt – visible through torn-down panels along the wall of the structure. Some men appeared to have climbed into the tunnel in an effort to prevent it from being filled.
🚨#BREAKING: Riot Unfolds as NYPD Responds to Discovery of Underground Tunnel in Brooklyn Temple ⁰
📌#CrownHeights | #BrooklynCurrently, numerous law enforcementare at the scene of a riot at the Chabad headquarters in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, where individuals tore wooden… pic.twitter.com/U4oSYL0Fkb
— R A W S A L E R T S (@rawsalerts) January 9, 2024
Police did not confirm how many people were arrested at the synagogue, though published reports state that between nine and ten men were cuffed. The charges are still pending as of Tuesday afternoon, a police spokesperson told Brooklyn Paper.
According to Chabad Lubavitch spokesperson Motti Seligson, a group of “extremist students” had previously broken through walls at properties beside the headquarters in order to access the synagogue unauthorized. On Jan. 8, crews arrived to repair the walls — but were stopped when a rowdy group broke through the wall of the synagogue “in an effort to preserve their unauthorized access.”
On X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, another Chabad representative, Yaacov Behrman, shared in an…
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