On December 31, 2023, law enforcement officials arrested 18-year-old Christian Sturdivant. He was discharged from a long-term care facility in Mint Hill, NC. Sturdivant has been charged with trying to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization, the Islamic State (IS). Investigators suspect that he’d been planning a New Year’s attack for almost a year.
Sturdivant’s relationship to terrorism was only identified by the FBI in 2022 when he was 14 years old. He took the initiative to contact an IS member abroad through social media. This caused a lot of alarm regarding his online radicalization. The probe had been ongoing for some time, and it greatly accelerated after Sturdivant started talking to an undercover agent with the New York Police Department. He clearly articulated his plans to commit a domestic terrorist attack through these conversations. He sent threatening pictures, such as one showing two hammers and a knife, as well as a voice message swearing allegiance to IS.
Closer inspection showed that Sturdivant had already been ordered, in advance, to wear all black and carry out an attack with a hammer. Further, he had taken steps to obtain firearms, showing his effort and intent to carry out his violent plan. He interacted with the undercover agent on a variety of social media channels. On his own TikTok account, he went so far as to post several times promoting the terrorist group.
Law enforcement officials later issued a search warrant for Sturdivant’s home, finding knives and a hammer under his bed. They found extensive diary entries describing what would become his synchronized attack, which further emphasized how serious he was.
Sturdivant’s mental health concerns were an important context to his case. He had reportedly been denied prior referrals for psychological care and was banned from social media platforms due to his dangerous behavior. Despite these interventions, his radicalization persisted mainly through immersive IS online content, which further exacerbated his desire to resort to violence.
The FBI’s ongoing electronic surveillance uncovered that Sturdivant had been prolific in his communications with IS members during his planning phases of the attack. Investigators are concerned that he was radicalized by that kind of extremist propaganda that seeks out and capitalizes on the most vulnerable people on the internet.