POSTED 4:29 AM, DECEMBER 9, 2014, BY CHRISTOPHER BRITO AND CNN, UPDATED AT 11:16AM, DECEMBER 9, 2014
CROWN HEIGHTS (PIX11)– Authorities say a man stabbed an Israeli student in the head inside a Crown Heights synagogue before being fatally shot by an officer after he refused to drop his weapon.
The police-involved shooting happened at the Chabad Lubavitch World Headquarters located 770 Eastern Parkway around 1:30 a.m.
Police say the man allegedly attacked 23-year-old Levi Rosenblatt, a young student who was worshiping at the religious center. He was taken to a local hospital, but is in stable condition.
One of their officers, stationed at a nearby command post, heard of the attack and quickly responded. He found the suspect holding a 9-inch knife with a 4½-inch blade.
The attacker was identified as 49-year-old Calvin Peters of 722 Wyngate Drive East, Valley Stream, N.Y.
It’s not clear what the motive was. Peters was taken to Kings County Hospital, where he died just after 3 a.m.
At a brief news conference Tuesday, the NYPD’s John Miller described what happened as an “isolated incident” carried out by Peters, who is well known to police.
“At this point, (this) appears to involve an individual who … has a history of being an emotionally disturbed person and acting out in other places,” Miller said.
Jews in the United States and elsewhere — including Israel, the site of several recent stabbings — have been targeted before. But police have not labeled this specific incident as a hate crime.
Rabbi Motti Seligson, a spokesman for the Chabad-Lubavitch movement, said that, “According to witnesses, (the attacker) was overheard saying repeatedly, ‘Kill the Jews’ or something to that effect.”
Asked about such reports, Patrick Conry — who oversees police detectives in Brooklyn — did not say whether or not the attacker called out anyone specifically because of their religion.
“He may have said words to the effect of, ‘I will kill all of you,’” Conry said. “We’re still interviewing witnesses.”
A cell phone video captured what happened next
“Throw it, just throw it,” an officer says, before urging the attacker to step away from the tossed knife and put his hands up.
The suspect initially complies, then slowly walks back toward the knife.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa!” someone yells out.
The officer yells out again, “Stay away from me” — but it doesn’t stop the man from lunging for, and picking up, the knife he’d briefly dropped.
The man then starts running toward police, saying, “Are you going to arrest me?”
Police officers — as, by then, there were several at the scene — can be heard yelling as well. “Drop the (expletive) knife! Drop the (expletive) knife!”
Then comes a gunshot.
Police keep up, pointing guns toward the now-downed man and telling him to drop the knife and not to move.
“Stay down! Stay down!” one officer yells.
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