Government officials pushed a North Carolina 18-year-old into giving answers about how he would carry out an ISIS-inspired attack that he never actually planned to do, his lawyer argued in federal court Wednesday.

Christian Sturdivant was arrested on New Year’s Eve after he posted ISIS support on TikTok and told undercover federal agents on the app that he planned to kill people in a Mint Hill attack on Dec. 31. He now faces a federal charge of “attempted material support to a foreign terrorist organization,” which is punishable by up to 20 years in prison.

U.S. Magistrate Judge David Keesler ruled that the mentally ill teen will remain detained without bond.

“I certainly don’t take pleasure in detaining an 18-year-old with no criminal record,” Keesler said at the end of the nearly two-hour detention hearing. But “the government’s argument is substantial and at times chilling ... [and] the forecast of evidence suggests extreme danger.”

In the U.S. District Court for the Western District of North Carolina, Assistant U.S. Attorney Robert John Gleason presented 16 exhibits showing Sturdivant’s TikTok posts and handwritten notes about how he planned to carry out an attack. He bought “tactical” gloves and a vest, gathered hammers and knives and filled several pages of notebook paper with research on ISIS states and plans for an attack.

On one paper, titled “Killer’s Guide to Successful Plans,” he wrote that he wanted to “kill the dirty, putrid females of this society, no matter your race” and said “I am pure evil.” He wrote on other papers that he believed Allah, the Arabic word for God, would forgive his killings and hail him as a martyr.

Defense attorney pushes back on federal narrative

Sturdivant’s lawyer, Roderick Morris Wright Jr., painted him as an easily impressionable, mentally ill teen who was going along with an act. He said the “tactical” gear was from Walmart and Ross and meant for workouts. He also said undercover officials “egged on” Sturdivant to “show us that you’re real” and “tell us what you’re going to do” while asking “who are your targets.”

“There was never any talk of a target until the government pushed him,” Wright said. “He was playing a kid’s game in an adult world, and now he’s facing the consequences of that.”

Sturdivant told undercover agents he would target a fast-food restaurant and grocery store. That was the Burger King where he worked and the Harris Teeter where his grandfather (who adopted him when he was months old) worked.

His lawyer contended that he did not plan an attack for a year, saying “it doesn’t take a year — it doesn’t take an hour — to plan to show up to where you work with a knife.”

His grandfather and grandmother, who are co-pastors at an unnamed church, asked the judge to release Sturdivant back into their custody and allow him to leave the house only for church (where he plays drums) and medical appointments. Gleason said it is “obvious the Sturdivants are good people, it’s obvious they love him,” but the teen still “got around their attempts to control and help him.”

Prosecutors for the government said Sturdivant had planned an attack for over a year and told investigators, who confronted him at his job at Burger King, that “he’s always wanted to kill people since the fifth grade.” In 2022, the FBI investigated a 14-year-old Sturdivant after an ISIS member from the United Kingdom contacted him via a PlayStation and told him to dress in all black and attack his neighbor with a hammer and knife.

He was voluntarily committed to a mental health institution after that and prescribed anti-depressants and anti-anxiety medication.

ISIS gave him a sense of belonging, he told agents who interviewed him last week.

©2026 The Charlotte Observer. Visit at charlotteobserver.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.