In this episode, former agent Brooke Plesnar reviews the Colleyville Synagogue hostage crisis, where Malik Faisal Akram, a British national, took four people hostage, including Congregation Beth Israel’s rabbi. The FBI’s Hostage Rescue Team (HRT) was deployed. While negotiations for their safe release were underway, the hostages were able to escape unharmed. HRT engaged and killed the hostage-taker.
Brooke Plesnar investigated this case while assigned to the Dallas Division as a member of the Fort Worth, Texas, Resident Agency’s Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF). In the year following the crisis, she also worked with British law enforcement partners to re-interview the hostages.
Special Agent and Support Staff (Former)
Brooke Plesnar
3/2019 – 1/2024
Brooke Plesnar served in the FBI for five years, three years as a special agent. After graduating from the University of North Georgia in the Corps of Cadets, Brooke commissioned into the US Army as a Military Intelligence officer and served two deployments to Afghanistan in support of Operation Freedom’s Sentinel. While serving as a targeting officer for the Joint Special Operations Command, Brooke was exposed to the FBI.
In 2019, she began her Bureau career in the Anchorage FBI as an Operational Support Technician and then later as an ASAC Secretary. Brooke became a Special Agent in 2021 and was assigned to the Joint Terrorism Task Force in the Fort Worth Resident Agency of the Dallas Field Office.
She left the Bureau in 2024 after the birth of her daughter and is now a stay-at-home mom and a pastor’s wife.
The following are links to news articles about the Colleyville Synagogue standoff and related images:
BBC – 1/16/2022: Texas synagogue hostage-taker was British
To learn more about how the FBI negotiates in hostage situations, listen to FBI Case File Review episode 083: Gary Noesner – Crisis/Hostage Negotiations, Stalling for Time.
Case-Related Images from the Colleyville Synagogue Hostage Standoff:
.
