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An 18-year-old from Mint Hill planned to use knives and hammers to kill people in a grocery store and fast-food restaurant in an ISIS-inspired New Year’s Eve attack, U.S. Attorney Russ Ferguson said Friday.
FBI agents foiled Christian Sturdivant’s plans and charged him with attempting to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization, Ferguson said at a news conference after Sturdivant’s first appearance in federal court in Charlotte.
“He was targeting Jews, Christians and LGBTQ (persons),” Ferguson said.
Sturdivant considered various Mint Hill grocery stores for his attack and planned to kill people in whichever he found most crowded, said James Barnacle Jr., special agent in charge of the FBI in North Carolina.
Monday night, law enforcement officers conducted a search warrant at Sturdivant’s home and found handwritten documents, one titled “New Years Attack 2026,” according to a criminal complaint in U.S. District Court.
The document listed items planned for the attack, including a vest, mask, tactical gloves and two knives, and mentioned stabbing as many civilians as possible, up to 20 or 21, the complaint says.
A section of the note labeled “martyrdom Op” mentioned attacking responding police officers so Sturdivant “would die a martyr,” according to the document.
Sturdivant lived with a relative who tried to secure knives and hammers from him, the complaint says, although FBI agents seized two hammers and two butcher knives from under his bed, the complaint says.
Officers also seized a list of targets from his bedroom, the complaint says.
“It was a very well-thought-out plan he had,” Ferguson said.
An initial Charlotte Observer search of N.C. court records found no prior criminal charges for Sturdivant, and a spokesperson for the U.S. attorney’s office said he had no prior federal charges.
FBI’s previous encounter with suspect
But the FBI did investigate him years earlier, when he was 14, officials said Friday.
Agents learned that he’d been in contact on social media at that time with an unidentified ISIS member from a European country, Friday’s complaint says. He received direction from the ISIS member to dress in all black, knock on people’s doors and attack them with a hammer.
Sturdivant also was accused of using his cellphone at the time to communicate with ISIS members online.
In January 2022, according to the complaint, Sturdivant dressed in all black and left his house to kill a neighbor with a hammer and a knife, the FBI agent said in the complaint.
Sturdivant’s grandfather restrained him and returned him to Sturdivant’s house, the complaint says. Sturdivant also is accused of pledging “Bayat,” a loyalty oath, to the terrorist group before he planned the hammer attack, an FBI agent said in the complaint.
A state magistrate judge in Mecklenburg County denied the FBI’s request at the time to involuntarily commit Sturdivant, Ferguson said. That probably was because of his age and because he agreed to, and did, stop using social media, Ferguson said.
‘I will do jihad soon’
Friday’s criminal complaint lays out what the FBI says were Sturdivant’s communications with a person he thought was an ISIS member in the weeks before the planned attack. The person was a New York City undercover officer, officials said Friday.
Sturdivant worked at a Burger King in Mint Hill, the complaint says. He told the undercover officer that he was targeting a grocery store not named in the complaint.
On Dec. 12, Sturdivant began communicating with the person, saying “I will do jihad soon,” the complaint says. He proclaimed himself “a soldier of the state,” meaning ISIS, according to the document.
Earlier in December, he posted an image of two miniature figurines of Jesus with on-screen text that read, “May Allah curse the cross worshipers,” according to the complaint.
On Dec. 14, Sturdivant sent an online message to the person with an image of two hammers and a knife, the FBI agent said. That was significant, according to the FBI, because an article in the 2016 issue of an ISIS propaganda magazine encouraged using knives in terror attacks in western countries.
Sturdivant is accused of later telling the person he planned to attack a specific grocery store in North Carolina and planned to buy a gun to use with the knives in the attack, according to an arrest warrant affidavit.
On Dec. 19, the FBI said, he sent a voice recording of himself to the undercover officer in which he pledged Bayat, the affidavit says.
Sturdivant was in federal custody without bond in the Gaston County jail Friday.
This story was originally published January 2, 2026 at 1:10 PM.
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Joe Marusak
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