CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) — The FBI said Friday it disrupted a New Year’s Eve attack plot targeting a grocery store and fast-food restaurant in North Carolina, arresting an 18-year-old man who authorities say pledged loyalty to the Islamic State group.
Christian Sturdivant was charged with attempting to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization after investigators say he shared plans for the attack with an undercover FBI employee posing as a supportive confidant.
Sturdivant was arrested Wednesday and remained in custody after a federal court appearance Friday. An attorney representing him Friday did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment. Another hearing was scheduled for Jan. 7.
The alleged attack would have taken place one year after 14 people were killed in New Orleans by a U.S. citizen and Army veteran who had proclaimed his support for IS on social media.
The FBI has foiled several alleged attacks through sting operations in which agents posed as terror supporters, supplying advice and equipment. Critics say the strategy can amount to entrapment of mentally vulnerable people who wouldn’t have the wherewithal to act alone.
Searches of Sturdivant’s home and phone uncovered what investigators described as a manifesto detailing plans for an attack with knives and a hammer, FBI Special Agent in Charge James Barnacle said at a news conference Friday.
“He was willing to sacrifice himself,” Barnacle said.
U.S. Attorney for western North Carolina Russ Ferguson said the planned attack in Mint Hill, a bedroom community near Charlotte, targeted “places that we go every day and don’t think that we may be harmed.”
Worried he might attempt violence before New Year’s Eve, the FBI placed Sturdivant under constant surveillance for days, including on Christmas, Ferguson said. Agents were prepared to arrest him earlier if he left his home with weapons, he said. “At no point was the public in harm’s way.”
The fact that Sturdivant encountered two undercover officers while allegedly planning the attack should reassure the public, Ferguson said. He declined to identify the grocery store and restaurant cited in the complaint, citing the ongoing investigation.
If convicted, Sturdivant faces up to 20 years in prison, according to court documents.
An FBI affidavit says the investigation began last month after authorities linked Sturdivant to a social media account that posted content supportive of IS, including imagery that appeared to promote violence. The account’s display name referenced Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the former leader of the extremist group.
Some experts argue that IS is powerful today partly as a brand, inspiring both militant groups and individuals in attacks that the group itself may have no real role in.
The affidavit says Sturdivant had been on the FBI's radar in January 2022, when he was a minor, after officials learned that he had been in contact with a person in Europe the FBI says was an IS member, and had received instructions to dress in black, knock on people's doors and commit attacks with a hammer.
At that time, Sturdivant did actually set out for a neighbor’s house armed with a hammer and a knife but was restrained by his grandfather, the affidavit says.
The FBI in Los Angeles last month announced the disruption of a separate New Year’s Eve plot, arresting members of an extremist anti-capitalist and anti-government group who federal officials said planned to bomb multiple sites in southern California.
Other IS-inspired attacks over the past decade include a 2015 shooting rampage by a husband-and-wife team who killed 14 people in San Bernardino, California, and a 2016 massacre at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, by a gunman who fatally shot 49 people.
Robertson reported from Raleigh, North Carolina. Associated Press writer Eric Tucker in Washington contributed.
This photo released by the Gaston County Sheriff's Office shows Christian Sturdivant. (Gaston County Sheriff's Office via AP)
FILE - An FBI seal is displayed on a podium before a news conference at the field office in Portland, Ore., Thursday, Jan. 16, 2025. (AP Photo/Jenny Kane, File)
A solo hiker who authorities believe was killed by a mountain lion on a remote Colorado trail on New Year's Day was not the first person to encounter a big cat in the area in recent weeks.
Gary Messina said he was running along the same trail on a dark November morning when his headlamp caught the gleam of two eyes in the nearby brush. Messina used his phone to snap a quick photo before a mountain lion rushed him.
Messina said he threw the phone at the animal, kicked dirt and yelled as the lion kept trying to circle behind him. After a couple of harrowing minutes he broke a bat-sized stick off a downed log, hit the lion in the head with it and it ran off, he said.
The woman whose body was found Thursday on the same Crosier Mountain trail had “wounds consistent with a mountain lion attack,” said Kara Van Hoose with Colorado Parks and Wildlife. An autopsy is scheduled for next week, said Rafael Moreno with the Larimer County Coroner's Office.
Wildlife officials late Thursday tracked down and killed two mountain lions in the area — one at the scene and another nearby. A necropsy will help determine if either or both of those animals attacked the woman and whether they had neurological diseases such as rabies or avian flu.
A search for a third mountain lion reported in the area was ongoing Friday, Van Hoose said. Nearby trails remained closed while the hunt continued. Van Hoose said circumstances would dictate whether that lion also is killed.
Based on the aggressiveness of the animal that attacked him on Nov. 11, Messina suspects it could be the same one that killed the woman on New Year’s Day.
“I had to fight it off because it was basically trying to maul me,” Messina told The Associated Press. “I was scared for my life and I wasn’t able to escape. I tried backing up and it would try to lunge at me.”
The 32-year-old man from nearby Glen Haven, Colorado, reported his encounter to wildlife officials days later who posted signs to warn people about the animal along trails in the Crosier Mountain area northeast of Estes Park, Van Hoose said. The signs were later removed, she said.
Mountain lion sightings in that area east of Rocky Mountain National Park are common, Van Hoose said, because it offers good habitat for the big cats: It’s remote with thick forests, rocky outcroppings and lots of elevation changes.
Yet attacks on humans by the animals are rare, and the last suspected fatal encounter in Colorado was in 1999, when a 3-year-old boy disappeared in the wilderness and his tattered clothes were found more than three years later. In 1997, a 10-year-old boy was killed by a lion and dragged away while hiking with family members in Rocky Mountain National Park.
Two hikers on Thursday saw the victim's body on the trail at around noon from about 100 yards away, Van Hoose said. A mountain lion was nearby and they threw rocks to scare it away. One of the hikers, a physician, attended to the victim but did not find a pulse, Van Hoose said.
The victim will be publicly identified following the autopsy by the coroner, who is also expected to provide a cause of death.
Mountain lions — also known as cougars, pumas or catamounts — can weigh 130 pounds (60 kilograms) and grow to more than six feet (1.8 meters) long. They primarily eat deer.
Colorado has an estimated 3,800-4,400 of the animals, which are classified as a big game species in the state and can be hunted.
Thursday's killing would be the fourth fatal mountain lion attack in North America over the past decade, and the 30th since 1868, according to information from the California-based Mountain Lion Foundation. Not all of those deaths have been confirmed as mountain lion attacks.
Most attacks occur during the day and when humans are active in lion territories, indicating the animals are not seeking out the victims, according to the advocacy group. About 15% of attacks are fatal.
“As more people live, work, and recreate in areas that overlap wildlife habitat, interactions can increase, not because mountain lions are becoming more aggressive, but because overlap is growing,” said Byron Weckworth, chief conservation officer for the foundation.
To reduce the risk travel in groups, keep children close and avoid dawn and dusk when lions are most active, Weckworth said. During an encounter, maintain eye contact with the lion, make yourself appear larger and back away slowly; don't run, he said.
Last year in Northern California, two brothers were stalked and attacked by a lion that they tried to fight off. One of the brothers was killed.
FILE - The General Store is seen Oct. 24, 2006, in Glen Haven, Colo. (AP Photo/The Denver Post, Karl Gehring, File)
