\n After about a year of planning, an 18-year-old was arrested on New Year\u2019s Eve in a suburb of Charlotte, North Carolina, accused by federal prosecutors and the FBI of intending to carry out a terror attack using knives and hammers that same day.\n <\/p>\n
\n Christian Sturdivant was arrested and charged with attempting to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization, Russ Ferguson, US Attorney for the Western District of North Carolina, announced in a joint news conference with the FBI late Friday morning.\n <\/p>\n
\n The teen was communicating online with someone he thought was a member of the violent extremist group, ISIS, Ferguson said. Instead, he was chatting with an undercover NYPD agent.\n <\/p>\n
\n Sturdivant, a US citizen, was arrested before any such plan could commence on New Year\u2019s Eve as he was being released from a medical facility, James C. Barnacle Jr., FBI special agent in charge, said. While the teen planned to carry out an attack that day, it was not tied to a specific New Year\u2019s event.\n <\/p>\n
\n Sturdivant is currently being held at Gaston County Jail on a federal hold, jail records show\ufeff. He faces a statutory maximum sentence of 20 years if convicted, Ferguson said. The teen appeared in court for the first time Friday; it\u2019s unclear if he has an attorney at this time.\n <\/p>\n
\n This appears to be at least the second known alleged attack plot disrupted<\/a> during the New Year holiday this year following a separate incident in Los Angeles<\/a>, where the FBI arrested four people for allegedly working together on a bomb plot that was set to take place around the city on New Year\u2019s Eve.\n <\/p>\n \n From conversations with two undercover agents, Ferguson said it became clear Sturdivant was planning to \u201cdo Jihad soon,\u201d clearly outlining to agents the venue for his alleged attack: a local grocery store and a fast food restaurant in Mint Hill, a Charlotte suburb more than 10 \ufeffmiles outside the city.\n <\/p>\n \n During a search warrant executed at Sturdivant\u2019s home, FBI agents found hammers and knives hidden under his bed, handwritten notes about the alleged plot and a list of targets along with details about what he\u2019d wear during and how he would execute it.\n <\/p>\n \n From what authorities described as a manifesto, titled \u201cNew Years Attack 2026,\u201d investigators gathered Sturdivant was targeting Jews, Christians and the LGBTQ community with a goal to stab \u201cas many civilians as possible,\u201d authorities said.\n <\/p>\n \n The note also had a section headlined as \u201cmartyrdom op,\u201d which described a plan to attack any law enforcement that responded to the attack with the intent that Sturdivant would die a martyr, the FBI said.\n <\/p>\n \n Ferguson called the attack \u201cvery well planned,\u201d adding Sturdivant \u201cwas preparing for Jihad and innocent people were going to die, and we were very, very fortunate they did not.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n The FBI first learned of Sturdivant in January 2022 when he \u201cwas in contact via social media with an unidentified ISIS member overseas,\u201d Barnacle said.\n <\/p>\n \n That member, the FBI said, directed the then 14-year-old to dress in all black, knock on doors and attack people with a hammer \u2013 guidance Sturdivant followed closely before a family member stepped in.\n <\/p>\n \n No charges were filed at the time, Barnacle said, and Sturdivant was referred for psychological care with no access to social media, the FBI was told.\n <\/p>\n \n A week before Christmas, the Charlotte FBI field office learned he was back online posting pro-ISIS TikToks under a pseudonym authorities verified belonged to him and a two-week investigation into Sturdivant\u2019s activities ensued.\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After about a year of planning, an 18-year-old was arrested on New Year\u2019s Eve in a suburb of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":384332,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":{"0":"post-384331","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/384331","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=384331"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/384331\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/384332"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=384331"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=384331"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=384331"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}