4Chan Troll Living With His Mom Arrested for Threatening Anti-Nazi Sheriff

A mid-30s 4Chan user who lives in his mom's house was arrested on charges of threatening to kill a Florida sheriff who recently went viral for his anti-Nazi tirade.

Police arrested Richard Golden, 38, earlier this week for allegedly making an online threat to kill Volusia Sheriff Mike Chitwood on March 1. Golden was arrested out of his mother's South Brunswick, New Jersey, home and had his computer and electronic devices seized from his bedroom, which his mother described to police as smelling "like a fucking gym locker," in body camera video of his arrest.

Chitwood recently went viral for an anti-Nazi rant he went on at a recent press conference addressing the rise of white supremacist and antisemtic stunts in his county. While it won law enforcement officer adulation across the United States, it riled up the internet Nazis. 

“Just shoot Chitwood in the head and he stops being a problem. They have to find a new guy to be the problem,” Golden allegedly wrote on the far-right image board 4chan. “But shooting Chitwood in the head solves an immediate problem permanently. Just shoot Chitwood in the head and murder him.”

The video of Golden’s arrest begins with New Brunswick police knocking on his elderly mother's door and asking if he’s there. “What the hell,” she says before calling up to her son. “Richard, they’re here. I don’t know who they are.” 

A large man with long hair and a scruffy beard comes down the stairs dressed in sweatpants and a white T-shirt. He’s quickly handcuffed by the officers and tells the officers he knows why he’s being arrested. They then show his mother a search warrant for his room and she leads them there. 

“It smells like fucking gym locker in here, sorry,” his mother says. 

After posting the comments on 4Chan, Golden’s IP address was immediately flagged by the Central Florida Intelligence Exchange, which launched an investigation into his identity. He quickly received a visit from authorities who say Golden didn’t dispute that he wrote the comment but said he never was going to act on it. 

“Like every other active shooter that we come across is a marginalized member of society who spends hours and hours and hours in these extremist chat rooms,” said Chitwood in a Thursday press conference. "Here's a clown sitting in his bedroom who is indoctrinated by this bullshit and thinks the best way to solve the problem is to put a bullet in my head.”

“Remove me from the equation. What happened in a synagogue in Pittsburgh? Somebody indoctrinated by this bullshit goes in and wipes out people in a synagogue. In the predominantly Black grocery store in Buffalo, New York, some white supremacist listening to this crap decides he's going to go in and wipe out Black people.”

Chitwood has been sounding off about numerous neo-Nazi and white supremacist groups who have set up residence in south Florida. One of these groups, the Goyim Defense League (GDL), is a virulent antisemitic group that actively tries to go viral by harassing Jewish people and minorities on camera. The GDL was described to VICE News by an expert as an “extremely antisemitic street theater troupe.” 

Do you have any information regarding the Goyim Defense League or other neo-Nazi groups? Please reach out to Mack Lamoureux at mack.lamoureux@vice.com, @macklamoureux on Twitter, or securely on Wire at @mlamoureux.

Chitwood said his office has other active subpoenas for people who made other online threats against him. Golden is expected to be charged with the threat of serious bodily injury or death by written communication. 

“His postings were anonymous. Everything is anonymous. They don't want to be identified,” said Chitwood before holding up a picture of Golden. “I guess if I looked like this, I wouldn't want to be identified either. Being 38 years old and living in my mother's back bedroom with no job.“

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