2 new arrests in American Fork gang-linked case
A man was arrested Wednesday by American Fork officers for investigation of attempted homicide, and a woman was arrested Tuesday on witness tampering and obstruction of justice charges.
On March 23, a group of friends — some of whom are members of the Soldiers of Aryan Culture, a white supremacist gang — picked up a man who had allegedly wronged them and took him to a parking lot, according to American Fork police.
There they met two other members of the group who pulled the victim from the truck, stole his leather jacket and then stabbed him, leaving him bleeding from a gash from his back around to his chest area down along his ribs, according to an affidavit of probable cause filed in 4th District Court.
The man most recently arrested helped hold and stab the victim, according to the affidavit.
The man "has been on the run," American Fork Police Chief Lance Call said. "It took a while to track him down."
During a bail hearing Thursday in 4th District Court, the man said he had just been terminated from parole after serving prison time for possession of a stolen vehicle and possession of crystal methamphetamine.
Police say the woman arrested on $50,000 cash-only bail got information from the ringleader about where the victim lived, then passed it to other "SAC brothers" so they could threaten the victim to not testify against the man in court, according to the affidavit.
The accused stabber also told the woman to contact the victim herself and offer him girls, tattoos and "whatever it took" to keep him off the stand, according to the affidavit.
Police confirmed that such threats had taken place to the victim and his family, according to the affidavit.
Several of those arrested are involved in the same supremacist culture, though not necessarily the exact same gang, as Curtis Allgier, who was arrested last June after shooting corrections officer Stephen Anderson at University Hospital.
Utah County sheriff's deputy Mike Coyle, who is the Utah County representative for the Utah Gang Investigator Association, estimated there are five to 10 Aryan-related gang members in the Utah County Jail at any given time.
"Gangs start around this mentality of looking out for your own, looking out for your neighborhoods and communities," Coyle said. "What happens is they get into that drug culture. (It then becomes) about the dope and the money involved in the dope."
Many of the SAC and corresponding Aryan gangs are heavily involved in methamphetamine, Coyle said, and trade their racial ideologies for drug dependencies.
Recent comments
Tatooing means something? Can a Mormon get a tatoo?
I am...
mark | May 3, 2008 at 3:22 p.m.
These "White Supremacists" are BAD NEWS! Bad for our communities...
Cougarkeith | May 2, 2008 at 11:32 p.m.
