Decapitation in Oklahoma: another unacknowledged Islamic terror attack

Todd Bensman

Manager/terrorism intelligence programs

Earlier this year, when President Donald Trump was under fire for accusing national media outlets of largely ignoring terror attacks in America, I suggested the president might have mentioned, as a case in point, Mohammad Ali Brown of Seattle.

But the President might just as well have pointed out the case of Oklahoma Islamic convert Alton Nolan, who on September 25, 2014 beheaded co-worker Colleen Hufford, shouting “Allahu akbar." Nolan was working with a knife on a second co-worker when a company executive (who happened to be a reserve deputy sheriff) shot and wounded him. It happened at the Vaughan Foods processing plant in the small town of Moore, not far from the Texas state line. Only local and some politically right-of-center media outlets covered the story as the beheading was largely dismissed as workplace violence or driven by mental illness; Nolan had just been suspended after co-workers rejected his Islamist proselytizing and demands for religious accommodations at Vaughan Foods. But the attack also happened as ISIS was heavily inciting American Muslims to conduct attacks in retaliation for recent American airstrikes on the group in Iraq, and Nolan's Facebook page was full of ISIS propaganda. Now, a local trial has revealed taped police interviews of Nolan, and other evidence, showing the distinctive hallmarks of an ISIS-motivated terror attack. The evidence showed Nolan was motivated by Quranic scripture and the same extremist Islamic ideology we have seen cited for attacks across the globe, to include the 9/11 attacks.

On September 29, a jury rejected defense arguments that Nolan was insane and convicted him of murder.

President Obama's U.S. Department of Justice at the time let the local district attorney charge Nolan under state murder statues (and as an assault and battery against survivor Traci Johnson), rather than charging the attack under federal terrorism statues, just as with Mohammad Ali Brown. Under those circumstances, the Oklahoma attack that killed Colleen Hufford, who one co-worker described as a "nice, kind lady," quickly dropped from public view in precisely the way President Trump complained about. Local news channel 9 covered the story gavel to gavel. A google search shows that, once again, no national media picked up on the story; mainly local TV news stations in Oklahoma and the usual conservative media outlets; nothing in The New York Times, Washington Post, CNN or the like.

As a quick aside before I share what came out in the trial, an argument can be made that national media investigation and sustained coverage, along with federal terrorism charges, deeply matter on several public interest counts. For one, an acknowledgement that terrorism has occurred opens the throttle on federal investigations that can identify co-conspirators, foreign connections, and intelligence failures from which homeland security authorities can learn. That kind of introspection can roll up other cocked and loaded extremists before they can kill but also engender more public awareness about reportable suspicious activity. Introspection also can perhaps reduce the chances of future law enforcement intelligence failures, assuming this is another one of them. On a very different front, terrorism acknowledgement and media attention encourages the nation to emotionally comfort the surviving families of our victims and helps them close the emotionally important loop of simply knowing WHY their loved ones died. And lastly, failure to acknowledge terror robs true American heroes of the credit they deserve for saving lives, in this case Vaughan Foods Chief Operating Officer and reserve deputy sheriff MarkVaughan, as I'll explain shortly.

Following are scattered excerpts from the evidence presented against Nolan during the recent trial:

Right after the attack, police asked a very calm and collected Nolan if anyone told him to behead unbelievers. He responded that the Qur'an gave him the idea. (Qur’an 47:4 states that "When you meet the unbelievers, strike their necks.) Nolen answered: "Uh, no. I read the Qur'an. Like I say, the Qur'an is easy to understand. No one guides me but Allah."

When asked why he beheaded Hufford, he answered: "I just feel like...I did what I needed to do. What Allah says in the Qur'an to do. Oppressors don't need to be here. You know the Muslim is somebody who submits their will to Allah...Whatever he wants done, that's what we do...And you know he wants us to get the oppressors out of this place."

When asked if he regretted murdering Hufford, Nolen answered: "There wasn't nothing but a trial for me. I passed it because, like I said, I felt oppressed. I knew for sure that, if I was to die right then, I was going to heaven." He added: "I feel, you know, you know what I'm saying, if I was to die in five or 10 minutes, I'm going to heaven. That's all that matters to me."

Nolen also confirmed that he screamed “Allahu akbar” as he beheaded Hufford.

Traci Johnson testified that she ran into the next room after hearing screaming and saw Nolan standing over Hufford with a bloody knife. "When I saw the defendant, I was frozen. I couldn't move. And I saw the knife with the blood on the knife, and he made a mad dash toward me and pushed me up against the wall and held me up with his forearm against the wall and just started splicing my neck. He was just going back and forth like he was just cutting a piece of meat."

The hero of this tragedy is Mark Vaughan, then COO of Vaughan Foods and an Oklahoma County Sheriff's Office Reserve Deputy. When the call came that a knife attack was underway, Vaughan suited up with his weapon, ammo and first aid on a vest. Vaughan testified that he and another employee entered the building where the attack was underway and saw Nolen on top of Johnson. He testified that he called for Nolen to stop. Nolen jumped up, ran around a corner and charged Vaughan at full speed. Vaughan said he fired three rounds.

Nolen leaned against a wall and fell to the ground. Vaughan then held Nolen at bay until police arrived waited and took the suspect away.r