Logan Co. Fatal Shooting Suspect Claimed Multiple Gang Ties

The accused shooter in Tuesday’s homicide and manhunt claimed to have ties to criminal networks, including a white nationalist group, according to 2015 court documents.

The claims are found inside an affidavit. A woman told police Nathan LeForce, now in custody at the Logan County jail, had tried to kill her. 

The woman told police she and LeForce would go for “long rides” and brag about his ability to be "untouched" and having "power" in the criminal networks known as the Irish Mob and Universal Aryan Brotherhood, often called the UAB.

According to an Oklahoma Gang Investigators Association representative, the UAB is a white nationalist criminal network found in Oklahoma prisons.

Law enforcement officials say it's a group normally joined for protection inside prison walls and doesn’t affiliate with the better-known Aryan Brotherhood gang because there are disagreements among the two organizations.

“Some of these groups are just loose affiliations. Sometimes they're not even in a gang until they go to prison and that's when they're looking for a particular group to gravitate to that they have common bonds (sic),” Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics spokesman Mark Woodward said on Wednesday.

The Irish mob is found both inside and outside prison yards. According to the OGIA representative, members of the group are usually marked by tattoos of images like shamrocks, the number “33” and the Boston Celtics basketball team logo.

The network is also known for smuggling guns, stolen goods and drugs which Woodward described as the usual fair for criminal organizations operating in Oklahoma.

“Drugs is primarily, for every gang, including these prison gangs that's their number one money maker. Especially in Oklahoma, you're pretty much talking about methamphetamine,” Woodward said.

The official from the OGIA said it was unlikely LeForce was a member of both groups at the same time because the two criminal networks “don’t get along.”

Woodward said LeForce’s claimed dual-membership status would be “pretty rare” in the organized crime world unless LeForce was able to affiliate himself with the groups at different times in separate prisons.

It's still unclear whether LeForce had strong ties to the networks outside of prison or if, like many, his claimed membership was only a way of life behind bars.

“With some of these prison gangs like the Irish mob, you may join it while you're in prison and some of them get out and then they never associate with them again,” Woodward said. “So literally, their ties to that gang are so loose that it's over in six months.”