A man in New Jersey was arrested after he allegedly made anonymous online threats to kill Florida’s Voulsia County Sheriff Mike Chitwood.
Richard Golden, 38, was cuffed at his mother’s house in Monmouth Junction, New Jersey, on March 13.
Sheriff Chitwood had recently made statements about a neo-Nazi hate group who have made several unsuccessful attempts at intimidating Chitwood and his family, including a failed “swatting” of the sheriff’s parents’ home and harassing one of his daughters, the sheriff’s office said in to Facebook post.
In response to Chitwood’s stance on the hate group, Golden allegedly posted several threatening comments in a 4chan chat, including “Just shoot Chitwood in the head and he stops being a problem. They have to find a new guy to be the problem,” and “But shooting Chitwood in the head solves an immediate problem permanently. Just shoot Chitwood in the head and murder him.”
The statements were flagged by the Central Florida Intelligence Exchange and detectives tracked the chat activity back to Golden, who was in New Jersey living at his mother’s home, according to the Facebook post.
“I cannot wait to meet him when he gets off the plane,” Sheriff Chitwood said in a press conference, “One of the first faces he’s going to see welcoming him to the Volusia County Jail, the happiest place on earth, is going to love me.”
When the FBI arrived at Golden’s mother’s home, his mother told task force members “her son stays in his room and is always on the Internet” and “He doesn’t work, rarely leaves the house, and is hostile towards law enforcement and the government,” according to investigators.
Golden was charged with making a written threat to kill or cause injury. He was transported to the Middlesex County Corrections Center to be held pending extradition to Volusia County.
More Law&Crime Coverage: Wife turned in husband after spotting hidden camera in guest bathroom: Cops
“The anonymous nature of the internet may make people feel they can say anything, but if you make threats or put people in fear we will use all our resources to track you down,” New Jersey”s South Brunswick Police Chief Raymond Hayducka said in his own announcement of the arrest. “Yesterday showed that being 974 miles away from the Volusia Sheriff’s Office was no distance too great for the teamwork of law enforcement.”
Have a tip we should know? [email protected]