FBI says it thwarted planned New Year’s Eve terrorist attack in North Carolina | North Carolina

The FBI says it has foiled an alleged plot to carry out a New Year’s Eve terrorist attack on a grocery store and restaurant in North Carolina in support of the Islamic State (IS).

Christian Sturdivant, 18, of Mint Hill – a town outside Charlotte – was arrested Dec. 31 while leaving a special medical facility. He was charged with attempting to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization, U.S. Attorney for the Western District of North Carolina Russ Ferguson said at a news conference Friday morning.

Investigators believe Sturdivant, a U.S. citizen, had been planning the attack for about a year, after a search of his home on Dec. 29 uncovered knives and hammers under his bed, as well as detailed notes about the planned massacre. Ferguson said the suspect’s notes revealed he wanted to target Jews, Christians and LGBTQ+ people, and that he planned to die a “martyr” by attacking police officers who arrived at the scene.

Sturdivant’s radicalization took place online on ISIS websites, authorities said, and he was found to have a TikTok account that posted several messages in support of the designated terrorist organization. He then pledged allegiance to an ISIS site, unwittingly doing so to an undercover New York police officer.

With this agent, whom Sturdivant believed to be an ISIS affiliate, he communicated on various social media platforms and revealed his intention to carry out the New Year’s Eve attack. During December, he sent a photo of two hammers and a knife, a voice note pledging allegiance and a message asking for help in obtaining weapons to use in the attack, FBI Special Agent James Barnacle said. He also listed the grocery store he wanted to target — authorities have not released the name of the establishment at this time.

Barnacle, head of the bureau’s Charlotte field office, said during the news conference that Sturdivant had been known to the FBI since 2022, when, at age 14, he was discovered in contact via social media with an unidentified ISIS member overseas. This person told him to dress in black, knock on people’s doors and attack them with a hammer, Barnacle said, but Sturdivant’s family intervened.

No charges were filed at that time, Barnacle said, and Sturdivant was referred for psychological care and was no longer on social media. The FBI subsequently closed this investigation.

Sturdivant made his first court appearance Friday morning and remains in federal custody. If convicted, he faces a statutory maximum sentence of 20 years in federal prison, prosecutors said.