Brooklyn, N.Y. – Congresswoman Yvette D. Clarke released the following statement on the stabbing of twenty-two year-old student from Israel, Levi Rosenblatt, at the Chabad Lubavitch World Headquarters on Eastern Parkway in Brooklyn by Calvin Peters, a forty-nine year-old man from Valley Stream, New York, who had problems with mental illness and had been reported missing by his family. After the stabbing, Calvin Peters was killed by a police officer.

“On behalf of the people of the Ninth Congressional District of New York, I want to share my sympathies with Levi Rosenblatt and the entire Chabad Lubavitch community. Institutions such as synagogues, churches, and mosques provide a spiritual home for the community of faith. As a society, we have a responsibility to protect the sanctity of these institutions and the ability of each individual person to worship as he or she chooses,” said Congresswoman Clarke. “This incident also demonstrates that we must provide men and women with mental illness with access to those treatments that will allow them to function safely in our society. Our mental health care services remain inadequate. Until we increase access to critical forms of treatment for mental illness, such incidents as these will tragically continue to occur. I pray for the quick recovery of Levi Rosenblatt.”

U.S. Representative Yvette D. Clarke is a member of the House Committee on Small Business, Ethics, and Homeland Security, where she is the Ranking Member of the Subcommittee on Cybersecurity, Infrastructure Protection, and Security Technologies. She represents many neighborhoods in central and southern Brooklyn, NY which include Brownsville, Crown Heights, East Flatbush, Flatbush, Gerritsen Beach, Madison, Midwood, parts of Park Slope and Flatlands, Prospect Heights, Prospect-Lefferts Gardens, Sheepshead Bay, and Windsor Terrace.