White Supremacist Police Officer Aaron P. Nichols of Springfield, Illinois

Policing in America has fallen under much scrutiny in recent years and with cops like the one we are featuring in this article, is it any wonder? This person has espoused racist, antisemitic, homophobic and transphobic sentiment on internet social media for years and has associated with other well-known alt-right Twitter trolls. He also claims to be a police officer for a municipal police department. We found out this claim is true. Then we found out who he is. This is our report.

[Editorial note: We have decided to keep quoted racial slurs in this article in their original form to reflect their impact.  Otherwise we have redacted slurs as a courtesy to the reader.]

"Magic Dirt Farmer"

One evening were were casually cruising the internet on the lookout for nazi creeps when we encountered an interesting comment by the as-yet-(publicly)-unidentified racist internet troll known as "Spicci" on the right-wing social media platform Gab. "Spicci" is a notorious Twitter troll who is known for his particularly nasty harassment of anyone he disagrees with and for his involvement in a widespread doxing campaign against journalists (we revealed an associate of "Spicci" also involved in this campaign known as "Mitch Hoob" as Michael Newidomy in our last installment). While "Spicci" was once the bully of Twitter, he has largely been booed off Twitter and feels more appreciated in the fascist echo chamber of Gab. One Gab user writing under the name "Magic Dirt Farmer @NogAirForce" responded to a post by "Spicci" (who now writes as "@Spicasso" on the platform) about red-flag gun laws:

@Spicasso Meh, I’ve got 3 years left and my supervisors know I’m not doing any unconstitutional bullshit. Never have, never will. I play by the actual rules. Most of the guys at my 200+ man department feel the same.

to which "Spicci" replied:

@NogAirForce i keep forgetting youre a cop, you dont act like it.

"@NogAirForce":

@Spicasso I despise the government and have for nearly 3 decades. The best place I can possibly be is inside the beast. I’ve done a lot of good in my careers.

This was interesting to us: a racist police officer on Gab conversing with a notorious alt-right internet troll. This was enough for us to do a little poking about to find out who this person is.

 

 

Looking through the posting history of the Gab user "MagicDirtFarmer @NogAirForce" we found a steady supply of racist and antisemitic posts, many with an explicit reverence for Nazis and Adolf Hitler. In one post "Magic Dirt Farmer" made the remarkable statement, "Hitler did nothing wrong." In the post below "Magic Dirt Farmer" wrote:

Uncle A [meaning Adolf Hitler] literally pleaded for peace leading up to the war. Hess even parachuted into England during the war in an attempt to broker a peace deal.

Hitler is the most lied about figure in history, bar none.

 

"Magic Dirt Farmer" didn't hold back on expressing his hatred of Jews. In one post he wrote: "If I found a genie and I had one wish? The jews would be a distant memory within 72 hours."

In another post he outlined reasons why people might ask someone to "to stop pointing out jewish malfeasance." He lists:

1.) They’re jewish

2.) They survive on jew head pats

3.) They’re directly financed by jews

4.) They’re retarded

Simple

Just to make it very clear, "Magic Dirt Farmer" really hates Jewish people, even to the point of supporting genocide. In one post he wrote, "I am a supporter of as many holocausts as it takes to cleanse this world of talmudic influence."

In addition to posting about his hatred of Jews, "Magic Dirt Farmer" frequently made racist comments regarding African-Americans. In one post he ridiculed a black police officer who allegedly wore his sweater backwards, intending to emphasize a perceived lack of intelligence due to the color of his skin. "Magic Dirt Farmer" often commented on his assessment of the intelligence of African-American people.

 

He also made his opinion known about supreme court justice nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson, referring to her with the racist slur "sheboon" and questioning her impartiality (the hypocrisy of a racist cop saying this is not lost on us).

And some posts manage to be both racist and homophobic, as in the one pictured below in which he stated: "Homosexuality is rampant in the blaq coonmunity because the majority didn’t have dads around to protect them."

While the handle "@NogAirForce" is racist itself, "Magic Dirt Farmer" also wrote under an earlier handle on Gab with a much more explicitly neo-Nazi reference, "@_14words_" referring to the white supremacist slogan "We must secure the existence of our people and a future for White children," coined by American neo-Nazi David Lane.

Under this account, which was less used than his current one, "Magic Dirt Farmer" once posted:

…I'm a nigger harm reduction specialist and we have minimum manning requirements. Someone has to clean these streets.

"Car SPD584, Where Are You?"

Naturally, we were curious about this racist, antisemitic police officer who chums around with other well-known white supremacist social media accounts. While "Magic Dirt Farmer" had a Gab account called "@_14words_", he also once had a Twitter account of the same name that posted similar content. While this Twitter account is now suspended, we can view pages of this account from the Wayback machine at Archive.org. In the bio of this account "Magic Dirt Farmer" described himself as: "Retired veteran. Currently under the protection of Archangel St. Michael. Perpetually SOCMOB. Dindu nuffin, din see nuffin. Equality is a false god." "SOCMOB"  is slang for "Standing on the corner, minding my own business." Notably, "Archangel St. Michael" is often referred to as the "patron saint of police officers." The statement "equality is a false god" is a common refrain among white supremacists who decry diversity.

 

Viewing one of the archived tweets stored as a JSON (JavaScript Object Notation, a format in which raw tweets are transmitted) we could tell that "Magic Dirt Farmer" had his account's time zone set to "Central Time (US & Canada)." Viewing the history of replies to this account in Twitter, we found that early replies to tweets from this account were also addressed to another, now nonexistent, Twitter account "@spd584." This likely meant that the "@_14words_" account was once known as "@spd584" (Twitter allows its users to change their "handle," or user name behind the "at sign," at the user's discretion). Finding the Twitter identification number for each of these two handles by examining the archived tweets confirmed that both of these user names belonged to the same account, since each account has a unique ID number. In this case, both handles had a  Twitter ID number of 128401279.

 

Archived tweets for the username "@spd584" were fewer, but still provided us with additional tidbits of information.  For one, "@spd584" (using the screen name "Bury the Deep State") described himself as: "Patriot, 20 year retired veteran, cop, constitutionalist, news junkie, politics is my sport, asshole (according to my lovely wife)." Secondly, "@spd584" used "An Appeal to God" pine tree flag as a profile image for a time, which was a bit of information that we would use later.

On Gab "Magic Dirt Farmer" once noted that he "was still on Twitter under my [his] real name, with middle initial even, until 2016." While we did not find an example of this, we did find that Periscope, a video streaming product from Twitter, still has a user named "spd584" with a full name attached: Aaron P. Nichols. A simple search on Google pointed to a public annual report by the City of Springfield, Illinois which named Aaron P. Nichols as a police patrol officer working for the Springfield Police Department.

 

Numerous remarks made by "Magic Dirt Farmer" on his various social media accounts corroborated what we learned of Nichols. In one post on Gab Nichols complained about a stream than ran through his front yard. Finding his property from public county property records and examining aerial views of this property from public geographic information system (GIS) mapping showed that Nichols indeed had a stream running through his yard. "Magic Dirt Farmer" also frequently made comments on social media about his spouse and family members that corroborate what we know of Aaron Nichols (as courtesy to his spouse and family we will not cite them specifically). In a particularly specific post, "Magic Dirt Farmer" discussed on Twitter a wristwatch he owned, saying "The GSAR [name of the wristwatch] was around $700 when I bought it a few years ago. Beautiful watch though. Stock pic."

We caught Aaron P. Nichols wearing this relatively uncommon watch in a family photo found on Facebook.

 

"Magic Dirt Farmer," who spoke openly about being a police officer, also made comments about his police department that matched characteristics of the Springfield Police Department. As noted at the beginning of this report, "Magic Dirt Farmer" gave us a general idea of the size of his agency, describing it as a "200+ man" department.

Aaron Paul Nichols of the Springfield Police Department

Aaron Paul Nichols, born February 1, 1976, has been a police officer for the Springfield Police Department in Springfield, Illinois since June 14, 2004, according to the Illinois Law Enforcement Training and Standards Board. He has been a police officer for almost eighteen years. As noted earlier, in a reply to "Spicci" "Magic Dirt Farmer" claimed to have "3 years left" (presumably until retirement).

 

"Magic Dirt Farmer" noted on Gab that he "grew up right down the road from where I currently live." This made sense, since he currently resides in the village of  Rochester, Illinois, not far from Springfield. Aaron Nichols graduated from Rochester High School in 1994. Prior to his Springfield Police Department hire date, Nichols held an Illinois private detective license from 2001 to 2003.

 

Getting back to the pine tree flag "@spd584" used as his profile image, we found the same image posted on Aaron Nichols' Facebook profile, as well as on a Twitter account Nichols later used (more on this account further down).

Most photos we have of Nichols are not current, but he has posted a couple of more recent ones on Gab. He may have lost some weight since his 2018 photos. The the image directly below, in which he posted a photo of his mouth and chin, bears a strong resemblance to a photo of him as a much lighter man in 2011 we found on the website of the State-Journal Register, a local news outlet.

"Magic Dirt Farmer" has frequently made claims to being a "20 year retired military veteran," a fact he likes to throw around on his Gab and Twitter accounts. We found that this was true and Nichols retired from the Air National Guard. In another Twitter account, "_WeWillWin_" (now suspended) after the suspension of his previous Twitter account he stated that he was "retired AF/ANG if it counts here. Kinda a comm guy, kinda a construction guy."

 

In this "@_WeWillWin_" Twitter account, Nichols made numerous references about his work as a police officer at the Springfield Police Department, many of which indicate that his extremist views influence his behavior as a law enforcement officer, despite his claims to the contrary on his very same social media accounts. In one comment responding to a post by neo-Nazi leader Mike "Enoch" Peinovich who stated:

Time for white cops to stop writing tickets to non-violent whites. They accuse of white privilege even though it's not real. Why do the time if you're not doing the crime? Malicious discretion. No more speeding tickets, parking tickets etc for

Nichols responded:

I've been practicing this for years. However, I don't write blaqs tickets either unless I have to because I know who actually pays for them one way or another.

 

Nichols has a decidedly mean-spirited way of handling the issue of homeless or unsheltered persons. In one post he proudly described callously dumping out the belongings of one such person. In another he simply wrote "Fuck the homeless."

 

Nichols is well aware that his online activities would likely get him fired from his job and would be socially damaging, since he has stated so in numerous Twitter posts. But this seems to be a risk he is willing to take since he continues to post vicious racist, antisemitic, homophobic and transphobic postings on social media. On the other hand, however, we may be fortunate that this is the case because if he had not then we never would have known what was simmering behind his badge and blue uniform.

 

Overall, Nichols gives the impression of being on the edge of snapping, waiting for an excuse, judging by statements like, "When I seize power 'hate crimes' will be encouraged" and "I'm not willingly giving up my way of life. I'll die in a pile of brass," implying that he won't go down without without expending a lot of ammunition. One cryptic statement he made was "When you decide you're not afraid of death you're finally free."

 

Nichols also encouraged people to call the police for "everything" because we wants the system to be overwhelmed (posted in yet another Twitter account, "@_NotOvenReady_", a reference to Nazis burning the bodies of Jewish people in ovens during the Holocaust) :

I'm not joking when I say this:

Call the police for EVERYTHING. (Don't put yourself in a trick bag. No lying, no false reports. Hell, be anonymous.)

Do I really want more calls for service? Nope.

Do I want the system to be absolutely overwhelmed? Yep.

These posts make clear that Officer Aaron Nichols is not committed to the improvement of the community but rather, in his hatred towards a modern, liberal society, encourages its complete collapse.

Psycho Nazi Cop Aaron P. Nichols

Policing in America is an issue that deserves scrutiny and continued debate, but on the topic of Officer Aaron Paul Nichols of the Springfield Police Department there can be no debate. For nearly two decades Nichols has exercised the authority of his position while advocating for the genocide of Jewish people and the subjugation of African-Americans. He has praised Adolf Hitler and Nazis and promoted conspiracy theories about Jews and Holocaust denial. Furthermore, Nichols' dedication to the so-called law and order that he has sworn an oath to defend seems perilously fragile considering he encourages collapse of "the system," which we must assume to mean a modern, liberal society. Whether your position is to defund the police or to reform the police or anywhere in between, one thing any reasonable person would agree on is that Nichols is unfit to be a police officer.

Furthermore, it would be naive to think that Nichols is the only law enforcement officer who holds extreme views. Nichols stated in one Gab post:

As recently as the 90’s my agency had an unofficial OTA call disposition “NN”. That’s “nigger nonsense” for the uneducated. What the fuck happened to us?

Whether one chooses to believe so or not, it is a fact that racism has a long history in law enforcement. Until this is acknowledged there will be little progress towards true justice. There are good people, and there are people who are otherwise good that might happen to be cops. But Aaron Nichols is not one of them. He is an example of why no one should be lauded by the simple virtue of being a law enforcement officer.

 

 

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Appendix: Archived Social Media Posts by Aaron Nichols

What we have presented in this article is just a fraction of the racist output by Aaron Nichols on social media. Links to archived posts of his various Twitter accounts are below:

• Twitter posts as "@spd584" may be viewed at web.archive.org here: [link]
• Twitter posts as "@_14words_" may be viewed at web.archive.org here: [link]
• Twitter posts as "@_WeWillWin_" may be viewed at web.archive.org here: [link]
• Twitter posts as "@NogAirForce" may be viewed at web.archive.org here: [link]
• Twitter posts as "@Wypipo_dont_die" may be viewed at web.archive.org here: [link]
• Twitter posts as "@Wypipo_r_Us" may be viewed at web.archive.org here: [link]
• Twitter posts as "@_NotOvenReady_" may be viewed at web.archive.org here: [link]

Posts on Gab are not regularly crawled by web.archive.org. We have tried to preserve as many of Nichols' pertinent Gab posts as we could. Below are links to manually archived posts on Gab:

• "A reminder: My wife didn’t know that Hansel and Gretel was about the jews, but my boys (12-18) did. There’s hope." [link]
• "Why don't you like jews?" [link]
• "I dealt with blaqs that turned in a wanted blaq today. Couldn’t wait for my shift to end, because that’s bad fucking juju." [link]
• "Over the last two years our local blaqs have divided into two very distinct groups. Group #1 wants to get along. They’re polite, conversational, and generally harmless (for blaqs). Group #2 is angry and more militant than the most militant blaqs prior to all this mess. This is my observation, and completely anecdotal, but it’s what I’m experiencing on the street. It’s about 85/15 or so." [link]
• "When I was a young cop I had a blaq sergeant who often arrived for work in the winter with his sweater on backwards. There’s literally a place to put you fucking badge and we don’t wear badges on our backs." [link]
• "GO FUCK YOURSELVES YOU NIGGER JEW PIECES OF SHIT." [link]
• "I’ll say it in English. I am a supporter of as many holocausts as it takes to cleanse this world of talmudic influence." [link]
• "Did some red pilling at the annual “known you forever” Christmas party. One guy, who is actually a neighbor now, says “next you’re going to tell me you don’t believe in the holocaust”. Correct." [link]
• "I have metal stamps. I think I’ll just stamp 14/88 into every nigger quarter I get. Easy." [link]
• "My respect for American Indians is lower than whale shit." [link]
• "Wait, are you a nigger? I find that hard to believe since you can spell, but I suppose anything is possible." [link]
• "I am cautious around blaqs because I’m not retarded." [link]
• "When I seize power “hate crimes” will be encouraged." [link]
• "We’re not going anywhere, no matter what plans the rat faced jews have." [link]
• "I find it hilarious that every mulatto I know and every blaq I know that comes from an intact, successful family just happen to be the most militant BLM supporters." [link]
• "Comparing January 6th to the Holocaust is an insult to the 64 million who perished in the Holocaust." [link]
• "We don’t have an “intelligence community”…We have jews." [link]
• "Niggers ruin everything. Even if it’s Whites doing the stealing they’re likely selling the meat to blaq run restaurants or trading it to niggers for dope. Real talk." [link]
• "Homosexuality is rampant in the blaq coonmunity because the majority didn’t have dads around to protect them." [link]
• "Boycott nigger businesses." [link]
• "Hitler did nothing wrong." [link]
• "I was still on Twitter under my real name, with middle initial even, until 2016." [link]
• "I work a city that has a daytime population of ~130,000 people give or take. We regularly run with 12-15 officers on day shift." [link]
• "Not gonna happen for me. I'm a nigger harm reduction specialist and we have minimum manning requirements. Someone has to clean these streets." [link]
• "Niggers are so fucking dumb." [link]

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