Citizen Journalist Nick Shirley Fundraises for Security in Face of Leftist Threats

Conservative influencer and citizen journalist Nick Shirley, known for his investigation of fraud in the Somali community in Minnesota, is asking his followers for contributions to pay for private security following threats he says he has been getting from leftists.

The YouTuber recently moved his operation to California where he alleged he has found more than $170 million in fraudulent childcare and home healthcare programs funded by taxpayers.

Since he went viral late last year for his videos on Somali-run daycare centers in the Minneapolis area, Shirley says critics have doxxed and threatened him every time he shows up in another city to film videos.

“After posting on X that it was ‘time to raise money for security‘ once again, Shirley went on Kayleigh McEnany’s show on Saturday to boost the online fundraiser,” the Daily Mail reported.

“People try to dox my location live,” he told McEnany on Fox News’s Outnumbered. “It sucks because I’ll go to a city, I’ll be out filming… [then] some left-wing activist will take a photo, put me in a Reddit group chat. This happened to me in Baltimore. It just happened this last weekend in California.”

He added, “They say, ‘run Nick Shirley out.’”

Shirley said he had security in Minnesota, but that effort ending up tapping most of his funding.

“The last hospice (fraud) video cost $15,000 to go film because I had to have private security for three days,” he said. “So, I asked my fans and viewers if they could help me out with those security costs.”

Shirley asked followers to submit donations to a nonprofit security funding service called Blackline Guardian Fund, which says it provides protection to schools, churches, community leaders, “targeted” families, and nonprofits.

On its website it describes its “mission” to “provide elite-level protective services, safety training, and emergency readiness resources to at-risk individuals and institutions, regardless of their ability to pay.”

“I used to be able to film these videos without security,” Shirley said.

Contributor Lowell Cauffiel is the best-selling author of the Los Angeles crime novel Below the Line and nine other crime novels and nonfiction titles. See lowellcauffiel.com for more.