Police in New York detained a man at the Lincoln Tunnel on Friday in connection with his alleged threats to shoot up a prominent Manhattan synagogue, ABC reported.
Luis Ramirez from Utah had been stopped earlier in Kansas City, where police discovered a firearm in his possession, according to police sources.
Ramirez was unarmed when Port Authority Police agents stopped him in New York, ABC quoted officials as saying. He had made threats online after he had, in an earlier post, appeared to target Central Synagogue on Lexington Avenue, according to the report.
“Unfortunately, this incident underscores that Jewish communities around the world and even here in New York are under threat in 2025 and now require dedicated Jewish security organizations to keep them safe,” Mitch Silber, executive director of UJA’s Community Security Initiative, told ABC.
“What began as a terrible anomaly in Pittsburgh in 2018 at Tree of Life Synagogue with an attack targeting a Jewish house of worship, has become a regular facet of Jewish life in America,” Silber added.
Jews were the targets of 54% of hate crimes in 2024—more than all other minority groups combined—according to data published last month by the New York Police Department.
The 354 antisemitic offenses recorded last year constituted a 7% increase from 2023, when 323 such crimes were reported to the NYPD.
In New York and many other Western cities and countries, Jews encountered heightened levels of hostility following Oct. 7, 2023, when Hamas terrorists massacred some 1,200 people in Israel and abducted 251. The attack plunged the region into a multi-front war that lasted over a year.