NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WTVF) — The man fueling some of the bizarre conspiracy theories adopted by the Millersville Police Department is pushing back.
That man, former Navy SEAL Craig "Sawman" Sawyer, recently took to a right-wing podcast to respond to my questions about his involvement in a botched child predator sting in Millersville that is now the focus of a TBI investigation.
Instead of giving answers, Sawyer delivered a 90-minute diatribe against me. It's a response that illustrates how conspiracy theorists frequently use wild accusations and blustery language to avoid giving real answers about their bizarre beliefs.
"I definitely recognized all of the techniques in that video," said journalist Mike Rothschild, author of the book "The Storm Is Upon Us: How QAnon Became a Movement, Cult, and Conspiracy Theory of Everything."
"I recognized the absurd length. I recognized the jumping from topic to topic. I recognized the reversal of kind of who is under the spotlight."
Sawyer's interview on the Hagmann Report was touted as an act of transparency.
"Unlike Phil Williams, we have nothing to hide, so I will answer all of his questions," Sawyer told the host.
His chosen interviewer was another conspiracy theorist.
Doug Hagmann helped fuel the bogus Pizzagate conspiracy theory that claimed Democrats were trafficking children out of this Washington D.C. pizza parlor.
"So, Phil, if you're paying attention, if you are listening, and I know you are, here we go," Hagmann declared.
But instead of real answers, Sawyer mocked my investigation of the embattled Millersville Police Department and its conspiracy-minded assistant chief Shawn Taylor.
In an exaggerated voice, Sawyer declared: "The people of Millersville are terrorized for fear that when they call law enforcement or call 911, it may be the conspiracy cop!"
He continued, again in the same tone, "According to my reports or my reporting, the TBI went and locked down the Millersville Police Department."
Shifting back into a quieter, more condescending voice, Sawyer added: "You were so proud of yourself."
He also mocked the men and women at the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation.
"The fact that you at TBI look like you jump through hoops whenever Phil Williams says you jump through hoops — and you ask how high," Sawyer argued.
It was — according to the journalist who has investigated the QAnon conspiracy theories that have infected the far-right — a textbook example of how such conspiracy theorists think.
"I think the thing that really jumped out at me is how long that response was — that’s 90 minutes," Mike Rothschild said.
"One of the tricks that these people use is to just talk and talk and talk and talk."
I followed up, "It’s a way of avoiding accountability?"
"It’s a way of avoiding accountability. It’s a way of avoiding actually answering any of the questions."
Sawyer claimed that because of my investigation of that potentially illegal sting, thousands of children would be raped and murdered.
"How many of those children's blood is on your hands, Phil?" he asked. "As a father and a veteran, I'm asking you how can you do this?"
Mike Rothschild has seen it before.
"These kinds of people, if you start questioning them, they get really, really angry and accusatory very quickly."
And like he has on other podcasts, Sawyer falsely accused me of being involved in criminal activity.
"Have you been told to make this go away, Phil?" he continued.
"It seemed like we stepped on your fellow criminal network. If you are tied into them as your behavior indicates, it seems like we've disrupted something that's personal to you."
Again, Mike Rothschild was not surprised.
"The accusation that anybody that’s questioning me is actually a pedophile is very common in these kind of conspiracist circles — and it goes double for these kind of child protection networks, anti-trafficking groups, these self-appointed vigilantes who are saving children."
After almost an hour, Sawyer finally began reading from parts of my email, again throwing out more false accusations.
The email stated, "We're offering Mr. Sawyer an opportunity to answer my questions before that story airs."
"Well, gee whiz, Phil, why didn't you ask the chief of police or Shawn Taylor?" Sawyer demanded.
What Sawyer didn't tell podcast viewers was that we had tried, first with Taylor who refused to answer any questions, then his chief who declared "the reason why I'm not going to say anything to you is I don't like you."
"What this argumentative style does," Rothschild said, "is it deluges the other side with so many claims, so many questions, so many accusations that you can’t answer all of them — and any attempt to answer any of them is just met with 'Oh yeah, what about this other thing that has nothing to do with the first thing?'"
Soon, Sawyer was glossing over my actual questions.
"His next question is, our name of our organization implies that something, something.... ah, well, Phil."
The question he didn't want to read was about his group: Veterans for Child Rescue.
How many actual children have they rescued?
The truth, we suspect, is zero.
"When somebody’s response to that is angry accusations and essentially saying, 'well, that’s not actually what we’re doing,' I think you’re right to be suspicious," Mike Rothschild said.
I also had questions about the conspiracy theory that Sawyer helped stirred up six years ago when he led local reporters in Tucson to what he described as a "child rape camp."
In fact, police said there was no evidence it was anything but a homeless camp.
Again, in a mocking tone, Sawyer declared: "He wants to bring discredit about that. Well, this has been talked about dozens of times, Phil, over the years. That was in 2018."
He accused me of being "stuck in 2018."
"That’s something that’s fair game, that should be confronted and he should have an explanation for," Rothschild agreed. "And again this anger at being questioned to me reflects a kind of guilt and a kind of projection."
Then, there were my questions about Sawyer's more recent claims to know about planeloads of children being flown into the U.S. by sex traffickers.
"And one of those locations is near Nashville, Tennessee, that they are flying the children into," he claimed in another recent podcast.
But instead of reading my real question, Sawyer decided to just make up a question I had never asked.
"Phil wants to know: 'Have you demonstrated this or have you shot down any planes or have you disrupted or stopped these aircraft?' No, we don't shoot down airplanes, Phil. We don't go crashing into our vehicles on the airfields. We do this legally."
Mike Rothschild agreed it was what is commonly called a "straw man argument."
"He’s setting up a fake argument that he can then tear down," he observed.
"Yeah," I noted, "because I never asked if they shot down planes."
"Right, one would imagine that would be in the news. If they had shot down a plane, we’d probably be hearing about that."
To be fair, Sawyer was the one who had claimed in a film he produced that he had set up armed VIPR teams, short for Veterans Interdicting Pedophile Rings.
Still, I wanted to know whether he could just provide any photos or videos of these planeloads of children that he imagines sex traffickers are bringing into Tennessee.
"I wouldn't share this with you," Sawyer answered.
"I don't trust you as far as I can throw you, sir. I wouldn't share anything with you because you seem to clearly be on the other side of this."
Again, it was a typical tactic.
"The idea of we have the proof, but we can’t show it to you, it’s too explosive, it’s too damaging, you’re not read into it, that’s another variation of the secret knowledge argument that empowers a lot of conspiracy theories," Rothschild said.
We also had questions about some of Sawyer's other bizarre conspiracy theories, one on a post about people "running our country" that refers to the Jewish Rothschild family — he calls them a "banking cabal of Luciferian child rapists."
He also decries what he calls a "satanic cult masquerading as Jews" and "Luciferians pretending to be Jews" — all anti-Semitic tropes.
"I don't know what that's about," Sawyer claimed in response to my question.
"I don't know what he's basing that on. Again, when defeated on merit, it seems like people like Phil just throw out the race card."
Mike Rothschild was blunt.
"This idea that there are fake Jews who are only pretending to be Jews and who are really in league with the Nazis or with the Communists — and then there’s the real Jews and those real Jews should hate the fake Jews — this is just classic anti-Semitism."
"Trying to pretend it’s not is just insulting."
In fact, Rothschild said Sawyer's objections show how conspiracy theorists don't actually understand what it truly means to be transparent.
"He thinks this is a personal attack on him, and journalism is not a personal attack on people," the journalist added.
"It is a quest for the truth, it’s an asking for answers — and ultimately all of this could have been prevented if he had just been able to answer the questions."
Related videos, stories:
Part One: Meet Millersville's conspiracy cop. He believes the completely bogus QAnon conspiracy theory that falsely claimed Democrats had kept child sex slaves locked up in the basement of a pizza parlor in Washington, D.C.
He imagines sinister plots involving some of the country's most prominent political figures, including his theory — with no evidence whatsoever — that former Vice President Al Gore was involved in the disappearance and murder of 20-year-old Holly Bobo in 2011.
Taylor recently landed in Millersville as assistant police chief, promising to root out the corruption he sees there.
You can continue reading at this hyperlink.
Part Two: The controversy over Millersville's conspiracy cop, first uncovered by NewsChannel 5 Investigates, has now become the latest scandal rocking the tiny town just north of Nashville.
Now, two city commissioners want a special meeting to figure out how Shawn Taylor landed his job as the city's assistant police chief.
At the center of the controversy: Do Millersville residents want a high-ranking police official — with a gun, badge and the power to arrest people — who believes in bizarre conspiracy theories with no real evidence to back them up?
You can continue reading Part Two at this link.
Part Three: An attorney for Millersville conspiracy cop Shawn Taylor has told Millersville's city commission, whom he also represents, that they should not question the assistant police chief's bizarre theories or psychological fitness because his client Shawn Taylor could sue his other client, the city.
The attorney's advice, delivered in an email sent Thursday, responded to a request from two city commissioners for a special meeting to review Taylor's hiring following NewsChannel 5's investigation of the self-described "gypsy cop."
"Interrogating Assistant Chief Taylor about his political viewpoints or political speech will violate his First Amendment rights and thereby expose the City to significant legal liability...," wrote Bryant Kroll.
You can read more of this installment at this link.
Part Four: Anna Caudill agreed to watch the video of Shawn Taylor knowing there might be only so much she could handle.
"So we'll start this," I reassured her, "and then, when you've had enough, you just stop it."
In the podcast video uncovered by NewsChannel 5 Investigates, Taylor shared bogus conspiracy theories about Nashville's Covenant School shooting. Now the assistant police chief in Millersville, Taylor was between police jobs at the time he recorded the podcast with two other conspiracy theorists.
For Anna, the mass shooting was personal.
Among the three children and three adults killed that day was her friend, Katherine Koonce, the school's beloved headmaster who was gunned down as she tried to stop the shooter.
You can read more of Anna's story by tapping on this link.
Part Five: First, he went after Millersville’s former mayor.
Now, the town’s assistant police chief says his two critics on the city commission could be next.
Shawn Taylor, who has become known as Millersville’s conspiracy cop, made those comments as he turned to a group of far-right podcasters to defend himself against questions raised by NewsChannel 5 Investigates.
Tap this link to read from those Taylor's accused.
Part Six: Millersville officials are standing with their assistant police chief and his bizarre conspiracy theories regarding Nashville's Covenant School shooting.
City Commissioner David Gregory urged his fellow commissioners to demand that Shawn Taylor apologize for a 2023 podcast in which he had questioned the official story. Taylor falsely claimed that video released by police was actually staged.
But the three-member majority ignored Gregory's plea, just as they have refused a recent request by Gregory and Commissioner Cristina Templet for a special meeting of the city commission to discuss Taylor's hiring.
Read how this meeting played out at this link.
Part Seven: Bryant Kroll wears a lot of hats.
He's the attorney representing the embattled City of Millersville. He also represents Mayor Tommy Long, who faces accusations of misconduct in an ouster suit. Plus, he's the personal attorney for Police Chief Bryan Morris and Assistant Police Chief Shawn Taylor, representing them in a lawsuit against the City of Ridgetop.
To understand the role he plays, you can read that here.
Part Eight: In Shawn Taylor's world — in the immortal words of Taylor Swift — "I'm the problem, it's me."
Not his bizarre conspiracy theories — with no evidence — imagining some of the most prominent people in the country are engaged in child sex trafficking.
I explain how we got here in this piece, which you can click on here.
Part Nine: What happens when you give people with bizarre conspiracy theories a gun and a badge?
Secret recordings from inside the troubled Millersville Police Department provide a sobering answer to that question.
Those recordings — obtained from what was supposed to be a sting operation to nab sexual predators who prey on innocent children — show that, in their zeal to make some big cases, Millersville's conspiracy-minded cops may have crossed the line of what's legal.
Read more on this investigation by tapping here.
Part Ten: In an explosive new development that could bring new trouble for the already-troubled Millersville Police Department, a key player in a child-predator sting says the lead detective on that operation lied under oath.
These latest questions follow the revelation of secret recordings obtained by NewsChannel 5 Investigates from that child-predator sting back in May that, our investigation discovered, do not match the detective's sworn testimony in the case.
You can read more about that by tapping here.
Part Eleven: District Attorney General Robert Nash has asked the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation to look into the Millersville Police Department's handling of a child predator sting, including possible perjury by the lead detective.
In a telephone interview, Nash said he was also personally reviewing the one case resulting from that sting in May.
You can read more about that by tapping here.
Part Twelve: The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation has expanded its probe of the embattled Millersville Police Department, now looking into allegations that officials may have used sensitive law enforcement data to investigate their political enemies.
Sources told NewsChannel 5 Investigates that TBI agents began conducting interviews last week with potential victims, and District Attorney General Ray Whitley of Gallatin confirmed Monday that he authorized the investigation into the possible misuse of data.
Read more about that by tapping here.
Part Thirteen: With the Millersville Police Department now the focus of a TBI investigation, NewsChannel 5 Investigates has uncovered new questions about the stories that conspiracy cop Shawn Taylor tells about himself.
Those new questions include the stories that Taylor tells about the jobs he has held in the past, stories about retaliation he claims to have faced and stories that raise more questions about whether Taylor should have a gun and a badge.
You can catch up on the investigation by tapping here.