365: Brooke Plesnar - Colleyville Synagogue Hostage Standoff

FBI Case File Review

Jerri Williams

True Crime, Interviews, Fiction, History, Fbi, Government, Truecrime

4.6 • 2.1K Ratings

🗓️ 13 August 2025

⏱️ 55 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Former agent Brooke Plesnar reviews the Colleyville synagogue hostage crisis, where 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 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). She served in the FBI for five years. Check out episode show notes, photos, and related articles: https://jerriwilliams.com/365-brooke-plesnar-colleyville-synagogue-hostage-standoff/

FBI Agents Association Statement on Reports of FBI Agent Firings

https://www.fbiaa.org/fbi-agents-association-statement-on-reports-of-fbi-agent-firings/

Video Statement from Mike Clark, President of the Society of Former Special Agents of the FBI

https://www.facebook.com/share/v/1LpgzZQFf2/

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to episode 365 of FBI case file review with Jerry Williams. I'm a retired agent on a mission
0:15.1	to show you who the FBI is and what the FBI does through my books, my blog, and my podcast case reviews with former
0:23.1	colleagues. Today we get to speak to former agent Brooke Plezner, who served in the FBI for five
0:31.2	years, three as a special agent. In this episode, she reviews the Collieville Synagogue hostage crisis, where a British
0:41.7	national took four people hostage, including congregation Beth Israel's rabbi. The FBI
0:49.2	hostage rescue team, HRT, was deployed. While negotiations for their safe release were underway, the
0:57.0	hostages were able to escape unharmed. H.R.T. engaged and killed the hostage taker.
1:05.1	Brooke Plezner conducted interviews of the victims. The year following the crisis, she also worked with British law
1:12.9	enforcement partners to re-interview the hostages. When working on this matter, Brooke was assigned
1:19.3	to the Joint Terrorism Task Force and the Fort Worth Resident Agency of the Dallas Field Office.
1:26.3	Prior to joining the FBI, Brooke was commissioned in the U.S. Army
1:31.0	as a military intelligence officer and served two deployments to Afghanistan in support of
1:37.8	Operation Freedom's Sentinel. While serving as a targeting officer for the Joint Special Operations Command, Brooke met and worked with several FBI agents.
1:48.5	When she left the army, she began working in the Anchorage FBI field office as an operational support technician,
1:56.0	and then later as an assistant special agent in charge, ASAC's secretary. Brooke became a special agent in
2:03.9	2021 and was assigned to the Dallas division where she worked terrorism matters. After the birth of
2:11.0	her daughter, she left the bureau in 2024 and is now a stay-at-home mom and pastor's wife. After the case review, Brooke and I talk a little
2:22.0	about home work balance and the time away from families and the sacrifices agents are sometimes
2:30.2	asked to make in order to do this job. Before we get to the case review, I want to express my support of the recent statements made
2:40.5	by the FBI Agents Association and the Society of Former Special Agents of the FBI
2:47.1	regarding their concerns about the firing of FBI personnel over the last six months
2:53.7	without due process. I'll put a link to the statements in the description of this episode.
	...

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