2 young people arrested in alleged plot to attack Houston synagogue
[April 24, 2026]
By GARY D. ROBERTSON
RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — Two young people have been arrested in an alleged
plot to attack a Texas synagogue that involved driving through the
congregation to “kill as many Jews as possible,” according to
authorities and court documents.
The arrests come a month after an armed man crashed his pickup truck
into a major Detroit-area synagogue in another attack on Jewish people.
Synagogues around the world have increased security and protections for
worshippers since the U.S. and Israel launched a war with Iran on Feb.
28.
Angelina Han Hicks, 18, of Lexington, North Carolina, was being held
Thursday in the Davidson County jail under a $10 million bond, jail
records show. She was arrested Wednesday and formally charged with
conspiring with two "male subjects" to commit murder and assault against
members of Congregation Beth Israel in Houston on April 21, 2028,
according to warrants laying out two felony counts against her.
The FBI office in Charlotte said Thursday in a social media post that a
juvenile was arrested in relation to the plot and charged in Harris
County, Texas, which includes Houston. There was no immediate
information on whether the juvenile was one of the two male subjects
identified in Hicks’ warrants, which listed only their first names and
noted their last names as “unknown.”
A Houston Police Department news release on Thursday announced a
16-year-old being arrested and charged with conspiracy to commit capital
murder related to “a threat directed towards certain Jewish institutions
in our area” that the agency learned about Wednesday. The department
didn't identify Congregation Beth Israel specifically. The FBI and the
Houston school district police department assisted in the arrest.
“At this time, there is no other known credible threat,” the release
said.
Explaining why Hicks’ detention was necessary, District Court Judge
Carlton Terry wrote Wednesday in part that the alleged “conspiracy is to
kill as many Jews as possible by driving through a congregation at a
synagogue.”
“Allowing a co-conspirator a chance to communicate with either of those
individuals or those who could relay a message puts lives at risk,”
Terry added.
The FBI said its Charlotte Joint Terrorism Task Force began the
investigation Tuesday evening after a tip to a North Carolina law
enforcement agency.
While Hicks' warrants point to a potential attack two years from now,
Alan Martin — a senior assistant district attorney covering Davidson
County — said in an interview that there had been “some concern that
there could be an imminent event” targeting the Houston synagogue. A
potential motive for the planned violence wasn’t immediately disclosed
in North Carolina court documents. The investigation is continuing.
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A man listens during a Yom HaShoah ceremony for Holocaust
Remembrance Day, April 24, 2022, at Congregation Beth Israel in
Houston. (Jon Shapley/Houston Chronicle via AP)
Attempts to speak by phone with Hicks’ court-appointed attorney were
unsuccessful Thursday. The lawyer, Chad Freeman, told the Houston
Chronicle that the case was in its early stages and Hicks' youth
could be a factor in her defense.
“I anticipate getting numerous experts involved in the case to look
at both investigatory and possible forensic matters,” Freeman told
the newspaper. Her next scheduled hearing is May 13.
Congregational Beth Israel is the oldest Jewish house of worship in
Texas, founded in the 1850s. It also operates a school going up to
fifth grade. The Charlotte FBI’s social media post Thursday
mentioned an alleged planned attack at a Jewish school.
The potential threats communicated to congregation leadership by
Houston police prompted Beth Israel to close on Wednesday “out of an
abundance of caution,” the Jewish Federation of Greater Houston
wrote in a social media post. The campus reopened Thursday, the
federation said.
“The safety and security of the Houston Jewish community is of
utmost importance to all of us,” the federation wrote.
Lexington is about 90 miles (145 kilometers) west of Raleigh.
The FBI said Ayman Ghazali sought to inflict as much damage as he
could on Jewish people when he drove his pickup truck March 12 into
Temple Israel in West Bloomfield, Michigan.
Ghazali, 41, was armed when the truck smashed through doors and into
the hallway of an early childhood education area, striking a
security guard. He then exchanged gunfire with another guard before
fatally shooting himself. No one else among the 150 children and
staff was injured.
Ghazali, a Lebanese-born man who was a U.S. citizen, had learned a
week before the attack that four of his family members were killed
in an Israeli airstrike in his native country.
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Associated Press writers Jim Vertuno in Austin, Texas, and Corey
Williams in West Bloomfield, Michigan, contributed to this report.
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