Federal authorities said Friday that they thwarted an ISIS-inspired terrorist attack that was planned for New Year’s Eve at a grocery store and fast food restaurant in Mint Hill, North Carolina.
United States citizen Christian Sturdivant, 18, allegedly planned to massacre Americans using “knives and hammers” in the Charlotte suburb after he became radicalized online, federal authorities revealed during a press conference Friday. He planned to become a “martyr” in the attack.
“He was preparing for Jihad and innocent people were going to die,” Russ Ferguson, the United States Attorney for the Western District of North Carolina, opened Friday’s presser.
“He was targeting Jews, Christians and LGBTQ individuals,” Ferguson said.
Sturdivant, who worked at a local Burger King, was previously on law enforcement’s radar in January 2022, when he was just 14-years-old and communicating on social media with an overseas ISIS member who instructed him to dress in all black, knock on people’s doors and attack them with a hammer, James Barnacle, FBI Special Agent in Charge in Charlotte, said Friday. He was stopped from carrying out the attack by his own family, Barnacle added. Sturdivant then underwent psychological care and did not face charges.
At the time, the FBI was told that Sturdivant “no longer had access to social media,” which they learned “wasn’t true” on Dec. 18, according to Barnacle.
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Sturdivant began reading ISIS websites, making TikToks before he reached out to an individual he believed was a member of the terrorist organization who turned out to be an undercover agent with the NYPD, with whom he “pledged his allegiance to ISIS” and “disclosed his plans to ‘do jihad soon,'” authorities said.
He later communicated with an undercover FBI agent, whom he believed was an ISIS operative, and shared “very specific” plans about where he planned to commit the attack and how he planned to do so.
He also asked the person for help obtaining firearms to execute his plans.
The FBI then executed a search warrant at the suspect’s residence, where they found hammers and knives that were hidden under his bed and notes showing his plans. His family previously hid knives from him in the home.
The alleged terrorist was arrested on New Year’s Eve as he was being released from a medical facility. He is charged with attempting to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization.
“Without the swift action of the FBI, joint terrorism, task force, New York City, police department, the Mint Hill Police Department and our partners at the United States attorney’s office for the western district North Carolina, we could be announcing national tragedy. Instead, a terrorist attack was thwarted,” Barnacle said.
The planned attack comes just one year after Shamsud-Din Jabbar plowed through a crowd celebrating the new year on New Orleans’ Bourbon Street while displaying an ISIS flag on his vehicle. He killed 14 people and injured 57 others before local police took him out.
Din-Jabbar also placed bombs in the area, which failed to detonate.
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