The incident occurred on January 15, 2022, when Malik Akram, a British Pakistani man, entered the Congregation Beth Israel synagogue during a Sabbath service.
[1] Hostage negotiations ensued, during which Akram demanded the release of Aafia Siddiqui, a Pakistani national and alleged al-Qaeda operative imprisoned in nearby Fort Worth for attempted murder and other crimes.
[12] Clergy and staff at the synagogue had taken courses for a number of years through the FBI, the Anti-Defamation League, the Colleyville Police Department, and Secure Community Network in order to prepare for the possibility of an intruder.
[13] Malik Faisal Akram (March 3, 1977[14] – January 15, 2022) was a 44-year-old British citizen originally from Blackburn, Lancashire, in North West England.
[18] A brother of Akram said that he had undiagnosed mental health issues that were well known to the Blackburn community,[15][19] and that three months prior to the incident, a younger sibling had died.
[1][30][31] According to U.S. authorities, in 2001, Siddiqui married Ammar al-Baluchi, an accused al-Qaeda member and the nephew of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who was the ringleader of the September 11 attacks.
[32][33][34] For years, Siddiqui has been a cause célèbre within Islamist and Islamic extremist militant circles and in Pakistan, where she is depicted as a martyr and heroine.
[37] Akram entered the U.S. from the United Kingdom on December 27, 2021, two weeks prior to the incident, at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York City, listing a Queens hotel as his local address on a customs form.
[24] Akram then traveled to Dallas, Texas, apparently by air on December 31, 2021, and intermittently stayed in at least two local homeless shelters between January 2 and 11.
[43] Investigators determined that Akram purchased a Taurus G2C handgun on the street[2][44] from someone he met at the Union Gospel Mission Dallas, one of the shelters where he stayed.
[42] On the morning of January 15, 2022, Akram visited a Starbucks located less than a mile away from the Congregation Beth Israel, then he traveled to the synagogue by bicycle.
[45] At around 10:00 a.m., Akram entered Beth Israel by knocking on a locked glass door[45] and posing as a homeless man seeking shelter.
[42][49] A report that hostages had been taken at Congregation Beth Israel was made public at around 11:30 a.m. via a tweet from the Colleyville Police Department, which said a SWAT team was on the scene.
[48] Ultimately, more than 200 local, state, and federal law enforcement officers and agents responded to the scene, including a team of around 70 FBI hostage negotiators and rescue operatives who flew in from Quantico, Virginia.
[50][51] A livestream of the synagogue's services on its Facebook page streamed the ongoing situation, including the forceful taking of hostages.
[25][55][56] A number of local faith leaders rushed to the synagogue to provide support, including prominent American Muslim imam and activist, Omar Suleiman, who offered to assist with hostage negotiations.
[18][55] He ranted against the U.S., Israel, and Jews; used antisemitic and anti-Israeli epithets; delivered a rambling condemnation of U.S. military conflicts overseas; and occasionally spoke in different languages.
[19][58] Authorities suspect Akram chose to call Buchdahl because of her leadership position of a synagogue in New York City, where Siddiqui was convicted.
[42] At about 2:00 p.m., Facebook cut the livestream feed,[33] but police were able to access the synagogue's closed-circuit television system and view the events in real time.
A U.S. official said that the hostage situation deteriorated in its final hours in part because Akram "became increasingly skeptical that the FBI would accede to his demands to free Siddiqui".
[44] Over the two weeks leading up to the incident, Akram's Internet search history revealed that he looked up information about influential rabbis, Siddiqui, gun stores, and pawnshops.
[75] On January 26, a 32-year-old Texas man was arrested for being a felon in possession of a firearm; he was alleged to have sold Akram the Taurus G2C handgun used in the incident.
[2][74] Cytron-Walker expressed gratitude and thanks "for all of the vigils and prayers and love and support, all of the law enforcement and first responders who cared for us, all of the security training that helped save us.
"[50] Officials in the White House monitored the situation; President Joe Biden called it "an act of terror" and said, "We will stand against antisemitism and against the rise of extremism in this country.
[83] Many Muslim community leaders and Islamic organizations in Texas condemned the actions of the hostage-taker and expressed their support for the synagogue in the wake of the hostage incident.
[84][85][86] The Council on American–Islamic Relations, which has called for the release of Siddiqui and asserted that she is innocent,[87] condemned the incident as "an act of pure evil"[88] and expressed support and prayers with the people being held hostage in the synagogue.
[89] During the aftermath of the hostage-taking, the Anti-Defamation League released a report documenting conspiracy theories and antisemitic responses to the crisis, including false claims that the incident was an inside job by the U.S. government.
Supporters of the American radical right political conspiracy theory movement QAnon termed the survivors "crisis actors" and the incident a false flag operation.
Far-right political commentator Gavin McInnes posted that "maybe we should consider cutting Islam out of our 'interfaith' communities", which the ADL denounced as Islamophobic.
[91] Dani Menkin, an Israeli Academy Award–winning writer and director, commenced production of Colleyville, a documentary film about the hostage crisis,[92] released on June 23, 2024 in the United States.