{"id":418422,"date":"2026-08-27T18:08:16","date_gmt":"2026-08-27T18:08:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/418422\/"},"modified":"2026-08-27T18:08:16","modified_gmt":"2026-08-27T18:08:16","slug":"mass-july-4th-attack-stopped-in-northwest-texas-13-dps-agents-awarded","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/418422\/","title":{"rendered":"Mass July 4th attack stopped in Northwest Texas, 13 DPS agents awarded"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>AUSTIN \u2014 State officials presented a Unit Citation to 13 members of the Texas Department of Public Safety\u2019s Criminal Investigations Division in Amarillo for preventing a July 4th mass-casualty attack in Northwest Texas last year.<\/p>\n<p>Authorities began monitoring Kevin Hunt, 19, in February 2025 after his release from a juvenile mental health program. After tracking social media posts expressing grievances and a desire to commit a mass attack, officers detained him July 2, 2025, while he conducted site surveillance before Independence Day events.<\/p>\n<p>A search of Hunt\u2019s home by DPS, Amarillo police, and the Randall County District Attorney\u2019s Office uncovered firearms, high-capacity magazines, explosive materials, bomb-making instructions, and a manifesto. Hunt also confessed to making explosives.<\/p>\n<p>Hunt pleaded guilty April 29, 2026, to federal charges of attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction and faces sentencing next month. He also faces state charges of possessing explosive components, attempted capital murder, and terrorism\u2014Texas\u2019 first state-level terrorism charge.<\/p>\n<p>An alleged co-conspirator was indicted on July 15, 2026, for hindering prosecution and tampering with or fabricating physical evidence, and was extradited from California.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"AUSTIN \u2014 State officials presented a Unit Citation to 13 members of the Texas Department of Public Safety\u2019s&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":418423,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[27,29,28],"class_list":["post-418422","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-texas","tag-texas","tag-texas-headlines","tag-texas-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/418422","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=418422"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/418422\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/418423"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=418422"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=418422"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=418422"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}