According to newly unsealed federal court documents, Landon Kyle Swinford, a 20-year-old from Oklahoma, pledged allegiance to ISIS and identified the University of Oklahoma’s Gaylord Family–Oklahoma Memorial Stadium as a potential terrorist target in 2023.
Swinford, unknowingly communicating with an undercover FBI agent, scouted the stadium during a September game he attended that year with his grandparents. In text messages to the agent, he discussed the venue’s apparent vulnerabilities, including its barricades and law enforcement presence.
Swinford later conducted an in-person scouting of the stadium with the agent, as Breitbart reports:
Swinford had made contact with the undercover agent in 2023 on a social media platform after the young man had posted ISIS propaganda. They were reportedly in communication from May until that October.
Swinford allegedly had other ambitious plans. He told the undercover officer he intended to travel to Tunisia to fight for the Islamic State. And, he texted that he had picked out another target in New Orleans, a Voodoo temple there. He told the FBI that he researched explosions using butane and propane.
However, according to Fox 25 in Oklahoma City, Swinford’s plans were impeded by lack of money and by his mother, who discovered Muslim garb — a garment called a thobe and a skull cap known as a kufi — in his bedroom in October of 2023. All communication with the undercover officer then stopped.
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Swinford also had been accepted into an aviation mechanics school and was scheduled to begin attending in February of 2024. The FBI brought him in for an interview the following month, where court records say he admitted to making the terrorist plans.
Swinford: “Sadly, Yes” to Attack Plans
During the interview with federal agents, Swinford admitted he would have launched an attack in Norman if he had the means to do so. His response was blunt: “Sadly, yes.”
He also outlined separate plans — one targeting a Jewish synagogue, the other the Voodoo Spiritual Temple during Mardi Gras. His vision, he explained, was a coordinated attack involving multiple participants pouring gasoline and setting the buildings ablaze.
Child Pornography Charges Included in Indictment
Swinford was indicted last July on multiple federal charges, including transmission of interstate threats and possession of child pornography — a stomach-churning addition to the terrorism-related activity.
He has since pleaded guilty and is currently awaiting sentencing. Federal guidelines indicate he could face up to 45 years in prison.
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