That sting was run back in May by Millersville Assistant Police Chief Shawn Taylor and a colorful cast of characters he assembled for the operation.

Among the revelations, the recordings show:

  • Taylor did not involve other law enforcement agencies with more experience in such operations because of his unfounded conspiracy theories that prominent state officials are involved in child sex trafficking.
  • Members of a private group posed online as minors — despite Millersville police being told by prosecutors that the sting would be legal only if sworn law enforcement officers were the ones doing the work.
  • Shawn Taylor told one operative that investigators would be using “pre-signed search warrants,” which would likely be illegal, according to experts.
  • Police arrested one suspect then, when he refused to talk to investigators, they turned him over to the private group for questioning.
  • A Millersville detective boasted that the suspect was being taken to a jail where it was likely that he might not come out alive.

Archived at https://web.archive.org/web/20240717120405/https://www.newschannel5.com/news/newschannel-5-investigates/franklin-politics/disturbing-recordings-from-inside-child-predator-sting-shows-police-maga-operatives-ignoring-laws

  • AbidanYre@lemmy.world
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    4 months ago

    And start whacking some — you know, not to make it political — but whole leftist, corrupt, pedophile, this evil thing that’s taken over Nashville,

    Hmm, yes, it’s the left that need to tone down the rhetoric.

    • gibmiser@lemmy.world
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      4 months ago

      Let’s see, start from the conclusion that liberals are satanic pedophiles. Use non-law enforcement to identify liberals who must also be pedophiles. Entrap them and use whatever means necessary to take these evil satanic pedophiles off the streets.

      Sure, what could go wrong?

          • Billiam@lemmy.world
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            4 months ago

            Kinda funny how the party that isn’t sexually repressive or regressive doesn’t prey on children. I wonder what inferences could be drawn between conservative rhetoric and the sheer number of conservatives busted for child abuse. Is it just the power imbalance?

            • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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              I think there are many reasons. For one thing, they have the Christian vote locked up, and the sort of Christianity they preach is one where you can do any manner of atrocious things, ask forgiveness, be forgiven, then repeat the cycle. So many clergy that are even in prison for being sex offenders still get defended by their former parishioners.

              Another is definitely a power imbalance thing, especially when there is a lot of evidence tying psychopathy to business success. Lacking any real moral code is fine when you’re a rich CEO. As Trump said, “when you’re wealthy, they let you do it.”

              A third is that there are a lot of Republican voters who are so rabidly anti-left that they will literally elect a sex offender (Jim Jordan) over a Democrat.

              I’m sure people can suggest others.

              • TimLovesTech (AuDHD)(he/him)@badatbeing.social
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                4 months ago

                Well this is all part of the cult indoctrination that has made conspiracy theories a cornerstone of how they interact and interpret the world.

                It’s going to take decades (or likely generations) to undo the damage done to the critical thinking of so much of this country. The fact that as you stated they would elect known sex offenders (Trump/Jim Jordon/Matt Gaetz) but still think it’s the “Radical Left” that is the demonic pedophiles is just cognitive dissonance at an alarming level.

              • Maggoty@lemmy.world
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                I’d love to find the flavor of Christianity that says you need to confess your sins and accept just punishment from the government for them. Without the conservative wink next to “just punishment” of course.

                • metaldream
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                  Catholicism requires penance for sins, but not government intervention. I think that’s as close as it gets

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              I think it is rather that conservatism has nothing to do with being conservative really at the end of the day, that is just the team colors these people wear to identify what team they are on.

              Conservatives are conservative so they can hate without guilt and so they can control and possess with violence and be rewarded for it. From this angle the synergy heinous shitheads see in being a Republican and being a pedophile (but also defining your public persona completely around hating pedophiles too) is pretty straightforward in my opinion. Also probably the most pathetic thing on the face of the earth.

          • NABDad@lemmy.world
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            Here’s the thing. I really believe that the Republican party is loaded to the gills with criminal creeps. However, if I were to share this list with any of my right-wing Christian acquaintances or (sigh) family, they’ll respond with “Democrats are worse!”

            Is there a similar list of Democrat Sexual predators, abusers, and enablers?

            Without a corresponding list, it makes it look like it’s just trying to make Republicans look bad (as opposed to just showing what they are).

            • flicker@lemmy.world
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              4 months ago

              Why not just ask them to provide one? If they’re even worse, it should be easy to find supporting information.

              • NABDad@lemmy.world
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                I’d rather have both lists, and be able to point at the 53 pages of Republican predators and two pages of Democrat predators and say, "see the difference?"1

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            Samuel Jason Ingle, Dean of Asheville Christian Academy and a graduate of Liberty University has been arrested for engaging in a sexual act with a student. While registered independent, he chose the GOP primary ballot.

            That’s not fair man. I’m registered independent and chose a GOP primary ballot because I wanted to vote against Trump as many times as I could.

            I couldn’t imagine being in his position and being accused of being a Republican because of that.

        • Passerby6497@lemmy.world
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          Which is funny to me, because I’ve had two coworkers in two different orgs catch a set of bracelets for enticement of a minor using a computer, and neither one was a liberal.

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            Weirdly, same. Two different guys, both publicly pillars of the community. Both arrested for raping kids. In each case, they were just not at work one day, and our supervisors would just say, “So-and-so isn’t employed here anymore.”

            • Passerby6497@lemmy.world
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              That happened to me (kinda) the first time. I found out early because I got a a call about taking the on call phone (while already on call), and we were told not to talk about anything about it and he was totally coming back. But looking up the filing, we knew he wasn’t ever coming back.

            • Passerby6497@lemmy.world
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              General IT work. One was remote user support, the other was remote MSP work. Lots of really cool people in the industry, but apparently some super sketch peeps.

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                At my last job, the CTO told me how he was promoted, and how his predecessor was in the national news. Used state owned computers to chat up a minor for months and then flew across the country to meet up and was arrested. Funny enough, he was not a cross dresser or liberal. Just a small town conservative older white guy that nobody suspected and everyone respected.

                • kescusay@lemmy.world
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                  That’s practically the checklist for child rapists:

                  ☑ Older
                  ☑ White
                  ☑ Small town
                  ☑ Conservative
                  ☑ Well-respected

                  I’m guessing religious? Respected pillar of the church?

                  Yeah… These guys know how to present themselves in ways to avoid suspicion.

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        While I agree with you on how ridiculous everything this person does and believes in, I am not sure how I feel about the “entrapment” part

        While I don’t know the specifics of the entrapment, anyone getting entrapped by pedophile bait should be exposed.

        It’s absolutely ridiculous to believe pedophiles only exist in one political camp, especially with mountains of evidence showing anyone with wealth, power, influence, and status (politicians, police, religious leaders, authority figures) are more likely to be pedophiles. It seems that politically, more Republicans than Democrats are convicted pedophiles, but it’s certainly not one or the other.

        “Hunting pedophiles” rings hollow when you truly believe that anyone who likes the letter R cannot be a pedophile.

        • psycotica0@lemmy.ca
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          I’m not 100% sure it’s being used correctly here, but entrapment in general is when a police officer convinces or coerces a person into committing a crime, and then arresting them for that crime. So, if a police office is standing somewhere and you walk up to them and ask to buy drugs, they can arrest you for that. But if they are like “hey man, want to buy some drugs? Come on, it’s only $10. You know what, for you, first time is free. Just take them”, and then you take them, that is entrapment.

          The reason entrapment is problematic is because it’s hard to tell if you would have committed a crime, had the officer not pushed you into it. Maybe you were just feeling pressured and wanted the uncomfortable situation to go away, etc.

          As for not exposing entrapped people, there is this moral dilemma in general that often gets dramaticized in cop shows and movies, which is that the person we know is guilty gets away on a technicality or procedural issue. And at first blush that looks like a flaw. But actually it’s more like the lesser evil of a bad situation. Because what we don’t want is police using powers that erode the freedoms of the innocent people, like breaking into people’s homes and going through their stuff, or wire tapping, or torture, or whatever. Things we don’t want police to do to innocent people.

          If doing these things were “frowned upon”, but we still used the information we gained from it anyway, then it would be a viable police strategy. It’s a cost of doing business, but it gets the job done. Even if a single officer got fired for it, they could choose to matryr themselves to do the bad thing and get the guy. But we don’t want cops doing these things, because anything they do against a person they think might be guilty is something they could be doing to a person that’s actually innocent. So we kinda have to make the rule be that any information, no matter how good, that was gotten in a bad way becomes bad information that we all agree never to use. Because that’s the only way to make sure the police don’t want to do the bad things.

          It may let some guilty people go free, when the police screw up, but in theory it protects all of us against an escalating police state.

    • dumpsterlid@lemmy.world
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      4 months ago

      The FBI already investigate LEO across the country more than a decade ago and found that white supremacists were actively infiltrating our police force. Nothing has been done about this finding.

      White supremacists are “infiltrating” into police forces in the same way I infiltrate into my buddies house… when they specifically invite me over to hang out with them at their house and stand up and come over and hug me with a warm greeting when I show up.

      There is NO sense of infiltration here, rather we are looking at a fresh turd on a hot day (police), and there are flies all over it (white supremacists).

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    Holy fucking shit. This is BAD.

    Two of the men were introduced to the group as “prayer warriors,” who are part of a group that believes the battle against human trafficking is a battle against “demons.”

    Frightening that we have so many of these lunatics in the country right now, pushing and pulling one another further into psychotic delusions.

    “And start whacking some — you know, not to make it political — but whole leftist, corrupt, pedophile, this evil thing that’s taken over Nashville,” Sawyer said.

    The inability to see the difference between pedophiles and your political opponents suggests to me that you aren’t of sound mind to vote, posses firearms, or be around children.

    This shit should be investigated by the FBI. This police chief should be suspended during the investigation, as well as any officers who participated. This kind of bat-shit crazy thinking must not be tolerated in positions of great power over others. This is truly terrifying.

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      This shit should be investigated by the FBI.

      The FBI already investigate LEO across the country more than a decade ago and found that white supremacists were actively infiltrating our police force. Nothing has been done about this finding.

      This is truly terrifying.

      Yes. It is.

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    I think the implications are pretty clear when you read between the lines of painting your political enemies as pedophiles. It’s a very easy way to rile people up into a lynch mob. Here’s the fascist playbook on this: target a minority (LGBTQ in particular) as some kind of deviant or predator, legitimize vigilante violence against this group, extend that to the next group or anyone who tries to defend the first group. Rinse and repeat until you are able to consolidate power and successfully kill or imprison your political enemies with impunity.

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    I hate people who make a big show of being “outraged” over child abuse as a way to cover for their own repugnant, violent beliefs and behaviors.

    It’s the same way some prisoner who murdered an entire family will beat or kill pedophiles in prison because he thinks he somehow redeems him on some level by having a “code”. In reality he’s still a massive piece of shit.

    It’s deeply self-serving exploitation of a very serious issue.

    • bolexforsoup@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      For those who didn’t read the article, take note that one of the women involved ran for office as a Republican (obviously) and has been indicted for child abuse

    • TheFriar@lemm.ee
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      But it’s also very much like how homophobes watch gay porn. These people are deeply religious, and that fruit comes from the same tree that gives us the virulent homophobes talking about how “everyone has gay thoughts and it’s our duty as soldiers of Christ to ignore them because it’s the demons.” They think everyone else is just acting on the same impulses they have, and this is just them being weak to “demon influence.”

      These people are dangerous for kids just like they’re dangerous for everyone else.

    • sleen@lemmy.zip
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      It is in human nature that most people prefer not to be demonised by their abhorrent character/morals. One way to ‘break free’ or cover them up, is to demonise another minority. Of course, there is a lot of examples from extreme to light.

      In context with your post, that minority does seem to be the most ostracised within the majority (even the non-offending) - to the situation that harassment and ‘murder?’ By most communities is tolerated.

      The situation can be observed everywhere, online and offline; and one point can be ruled out in some cases “murder is justified if the person was a pedophile (non-offending & offending)”.

      This is one of the most extreme cases of improving your character at the cost of others. Harassment will remain harassment no matter what.

      • Maggoty@lemmy.world
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        It’s not just about rehabilitating your own character. Most animals on this planet have a deep seated need to protect the young of their own species. Even to the point of adopting the young from other species sometimes. Pedophiles violate that protective instinct. That’s why it’s so hard to treat them fairly in the justice system. Where we can look at some one accused of an armed robbery and ask ourselves if the evidence meets the burden; we are already working backwards from trying not to kill an accused pedophile in a courtroom.

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      There’s a little more to prisoners beating up pedophiles. Many of them are themselves victims of child abuse. It’s revenge.

      • retrospectology@lemmy.world
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        Either way it’s intellectually dishonest, hypocritical and inherently anti-justice.

        If I get robbed by someone, and then later go to prison and find out some random prisoner is a thief, I’m not morally entitled to attack that person (who is already serving their time).

        Prison justice is 100% bullshit.

        • Maggoty@lemmy.world
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          No, they don’t care if you were a thief outside. They care if you’re a thief inside. They’re not doing it just because of a code, they’re defending the tiny amount of property they’re allowed to have. We also wouldn’t even blink if a homeowner beat up a thief in their house, so this is a bit hypocritical.

          • retrospectology@lemmy.world
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            No, they don’t care if you were a thief outside. They care if you’re a thief inside.

            I’m not talking about if someone steals from you in prison (not that it’s justifiable to be violent because someone stole something from you in prison anyway).

            The analogy here is getting robbed at some point and then beating up some other entirely random thief who never robbed you (who’s already getting punished for their crime in prison). When a pedophile is put in prison, there are no children for them to victimize, they are being punished for the crime they committed. They are not trying to rape the adult prisoners, so those prisoners can’t claim they were victimized by that person.

            Prisoners are not fit to administer justice, they are there to serve for their own crimes and moral failings, not play at being judge and jury for fellow criminals.

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              Dude, most of the people in prison are there for drugs and robbery. That’s not even feasible. I don’t know where you heard that’s a thing, but it isn’t.

                • Maggoty@lemmy.world
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                  It would be infeasible for the prison justice code to include thievery done outside prison. Your example is ridiculous and meant to minimize the impact sexual predators have on people’s lives.

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    You gotta make an effort to go up against child predators and manage to come out looking like the bad guy.

    • Gumby@lemmy.world
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      Sounds like there was only 1 actual predator and dozens of people they’re just baselessly accusing or being predators. And the 1 predator will easily get any potential charges laughed out of court if it ever even gets that far.

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    Back in 2018, Sawyer took a Tucson TV crew to a camp that he suggested might have been used for child sex trafficking.

    In fact, police said it was just a camp used by homeless families.

    The problem of unhoused people has been solved. Homeless are now pedophiles. Let them get killed in jail.

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    Isn’t the term for this extrajudicial?

    “And start whacking some — you know, not to make it political — but whole leftist, corrupt, pedophile, this evil thing that’s taken over Nashville,” Sawyer said.

    There it is.

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    The best way to not be caught as a child predator is to pretend you are fighting them.

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    What happens when you give people with bizarre conspiracy theories a gun and a badge?

    Well here in America of A, that’s just Wednesday.

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    NewsChannel 5 Investigates discovered hours and hours of videos where Shawn Taylor has appeared on podcasts associated with the widely discredited QAnon conspiracy theories.

    Source: link in the OP article to part one of an eight part series.

    Editorial: A local news station investigated, uncovered evidence, and appear to be interviewing those involved about what they find analyzing the evidence, then reporting in a series of lengthy articles full of direct quotes. True journalism lives.

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        Why would you want dissemination of truth in the hands of the department of “order over justice”? They’ve been fucking us for decades just like the other two branches of governance. These journalist are risking their lives for truth. I trust them much more than any politician.

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          That’s why it’s a CC, not just letting them sit on the information themselves. If we know they have the information, and they know we know, then pressure to conduct a criminal investigation vastly increases.

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            You’ve the wrong agency responsible for investigation, I think.

            I’m talking about Truth and Justice the principles. I trust these journalists to serve us more effectively than any government agency despite their lack of authority.

            • Maggoty@lemmy.world
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              So who would you suggest the journalists send the results of their investigation to?

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                We the People, just as they’ve been doing. No one else gives a fuck about our best interests. Why ask for some assholes to get involved. We’d do just fine taking care of this one on our own.

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                  So what then? You just want to read about it and be mad? Nothing else? No arrests, no trials, no accountability?

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    Your average law enforcement agent already has a worrying tendency to be a moron. Now imagine if that person is also a conspiracy theorist.

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    Ok, from everything I know about republicans, there is undoubtedly a massive amount of projection going on. How long until we find out that him and 90% of his little renegade militia task force have CP on their devices? Maybe a a year? couple months?

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    POLICE and MAGAS ignoring laws that are inconvenient for them??!! I’m shocked, SHOCKED I tell you.

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      They don’t ignore it, they just make sure that they have a friendly judge say it wasn’t illegal when they did it. Much more civilized that way.