4chan user arrested for threatening to shoot Florida Sheriff “in Minecraft”

Michael Gwilliam
4chan user arrested for minecraft threats

A 4chan user has been arrested at his mother’s house in New Jersey after making death threats against Florida Sheriff Mike Chitwood “in Minecraft.”

It seems like making threats to kill someone and adding “in Minecraft” at the end will no longer be a valid excuse thanks to a recent arrest of a 4chan message board user.

According to media reports, on February 23, Central Florida Intelligence Exchange alerted Mike Chitwood about threats being made against him on 4chan following a press conference condemning antisemitic messages.

The user, Richard Golden, allegedly posted on 4chan, “just shoot Chitwood in the head and he stops being a problem” before adding “in Minecraft” to the end of the comment.

Police arrest 4chan user for making death threats “in Minecraft”

Detectives were able to track Golden to a New Jersey address on March 1 and took him into custody and plan to extradite him to Florida.

“Once he’s extradited, he’ll be housed at the happiest place on earth: the Volusia County Branch Jail,” Chitwood said during a press conference, adding that he was anti-government and anti-law enforcement.

Golden will need to live up to his name in order to make Bail too, as Chitwood claimed that his bail will be set at $100,000.

Footage of the arrest was uploaded to the Law & Crime YouTube channel where it has been watched over 300,000 times so far.

“The most surprising part of this whole video is that he wasn’t living in the basement!” one viewer joked.

“His conviction will go down in history as the moment ‘in Minecraft’ is ruled as an invalid defense,” another said.

Chitwood praised the FBI and South Brunswick police for assisting with the arrest and claimed he can’t wait to meet Golden himself when he gets off the plane.

About The Author

Michael Gwilliam is a senior writer at Dexerto based in Ontario, Canada. He specializes in Overwatch, Smash, influencers, and Twitch culture. Gwilliam has written for sites across Canada including the Toronto Sun. You can contact him at michael.gwilliam@dexerto.com or on Twitter @TheGwilliam