Oklahoma Man Beheads Co-Worker After Getting Fired

An Oklahoma man beheaded a co-worker at a food processing company on Thursday afternoon, and stabbed another employee before he was shot and wounded by a company executive, the police said Friday.

The suspect, identified as Alton Nolen, had just been fired from the company, Vaughan Foods, and “he recently started trying to convert some of his co-workers to the Muslim religion,” reported Jeremy Lewis, a spokesman for the police department in Moore, Okla. However, this was not the reason for his termination from his job.

After being fired, “he drove to the front of the business, running into a vehicle, exited his vehicle, entered the business, where he encountered the first victim, Colleen Hufford, 54, and began assaulting her with a knife,” Mr. Lewis said. “He did kill Colleen and did sever her head.”

The police also reported that Nelson attacked another victim,Traci Johnson, 43, with the same knife and at that point, “Mark Vaughan, who is the chief operating officer of Vaughan Foods and is also an Oklahoma County reserve deputy, confronted Nolen, and at that time shot him and stopped the threat and the assault.”

Mr. Nolen, 30, who already has a criminal history, was convicted in 2011 of multiple drug charges, assault and battery on a police officer, and escape from detention, according to the Oklahoma Department of Corrections. He had earlier arrests on drug and assault charges.

He has been admitted at the Oklahoma University Medical Center and is expected to survive. He has not been charged. He and Ms. Johnson are reportedly in stable condition.

According to New York Times, a law enforcement official said the F.B.I. had not found any connection between Mr. Nolen and the Islamic State, also known as ISIS, or other groups. “It’s not a typical workplace response, and given the current environment it is very alarming and is something we are closely looking into,” one of the officials said. “So far, there is no nexus to terrorism we are aware of.”

Law enforcement officials said Mr. Nolen recently converted to Islam. On a Facebook page that appears to be his, references to Islam began in April 2013, and he called himself Jah’Keem Yisrael. The page is filled with criticism of American culture, and dire warnings for those who do not follow that religion.

“This is the last days,” he wrote in his most recent post, on Tuesday. In another, in July, he wrote: “AMERICA AND ISRAEL ARE WICKED. WAKE UP MUSLIMS!!!