NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WTVF) — 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.
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.
"This is the most disturbing video that I've ever been asked to comment on since I've been asked to do the legal analyst job here at the station," said Nick Leonardo, a veteran Nashville lawyer who worked with NewsChannel 5 for some 15 years.
Millersville police did not respond to NewsChannel 5's request for comment.
As NewsChannel 5 Investigates first revealed, Shawn Taylor has voiced support for all sorts of bizarre conspiracy theories, many of them involving child sex trafficking and some of the country's most powerful political figures.
Taylor even believes the discredited QAnon "Pizzagate" hoax that falsely claimed Democrats kept child sex slaves locked up in the basement of a D.C. pizza parlor.
He imagines that Millersville, a community of about 6,000 people just north of Nashville, is at the center of Tennessee's drug and human trafficking operations.
Listen to recording excerpt in player below:
The recordings show that, in a phone call in the run-up to the Millersville sting, Taylor once again revealed his conspiracy-fueled paranoia, insisting that the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation and other state law enforcement agencies are involved in the sex trafficking.
"So be real careful, especially when it comes to our state agencies," Taylor cautioned. "So we've just got to be real careful with them because we have people what we've already identified that are involved in the money laundering side."
Listen to recording excerpt in player below:
"Truth be told, it's a lie," Leonardo said.
NewsChannel 5 Investigates added, "It's unhinged?"
"It's unhinged. It is very, very, very dangerous."
In fact, a team photo for Operation Clean Sweep, as Taylor dubbed it, consisted of just five police officers from Millersville — none with actual experience running child sex stings.
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."
The woman in the middle was a three-time Republican candidate for Congress from North Carolina, who faced accusations of domestic violence and child abuse that she denied.
There were also two MAGA podcasters and former Navy SEAL Craig "Sawman" Sawyer.
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.
These days, on far-right podcasts, Sawyer raises money for his own Arizona-based nonprofit called Veterans for Child Rescue, but there's no evidence that his group has ever rescued any actual children.
On one recent podcast, Sawyer claimed, without evidence, that he knew of a location "near Nashville, Tennessee that they are flying the children into."
Even more bizarrely, the secret recordings reveal Sawyer talking about his hopes for continuing to work with Shawn Taylor.
"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.
Listen to recording excerpt in player below:
Nick Leonardo's reaction?
"Just when you thought it couldn't get any more shocking, you keep listening and it just gets worse as it goes."
For example, in one recording, Shawn Taylor talks about being prepared for the operation with "pre-signed search warrants."
"We're going to have search warrants that are already — they'll have to meet certain perimeters for us to execute the search warrant — but they are going to be pre-signed search warrants," Taylor told a member of Sawyer's team.
Listen to recording excerpt in player below:
There's just one major problem.
"A search warrant cannot be pre-signed," Leonardo said. "You have to see what's going on, and you have to put that into a warrant, and you have to swear to that individually in front of a judge — and that becomes the probable cause."
NewsChannel 5 asked, "Is a pre-signed search warrant going to stand up in court?"
"A pre-signed search warrant would be a criminal offense in and of itself," Leonardo answered.
A source with longtime experience running child predator schemes confirmed that "pre-signed search warrants" would not be legal in such situations where they do not know whom they are going to encounter..
In the recordings, a member of Sawyer's team reveals a deal with Shawn Taylor where Millersville PD would seize data from any suspects and share that data with Sawyer's group — people who are not law enforcement officers.
"They are going to dump their phones, and they've agreed to give us their contact lists off their phones — so all of this data" would be shared with the group, said Forrest Sealey, executive director of Veterans for Child Rescue.
Listen to recording excerpt in player below:
Again, Leonardo was shocked by what he heard.
"There's no reason whatsoever that any kind of evidence — electronic data seized from any kind of device pursuant to a valid search warrant — should ever be in the hands of a private individual. That potentially would lend itself to a criminal charge."
"So that could be a crime, as well?"
"Potentially, it could be a crime."
And the video shows it was members of Craig Sawyer's team actually doing the chatting, posing online as a 12-year-old girl.
But that's not how Shawn Taylor was told that it had to be done to make it legal.
"So we just talked to our DA," Taylor said in a telephone call before the operation. "And, so, with the Tennessee state law, it said that the officer has to do the actual typing, that with our law it says it has to be a law enforcement officer posing as a minor."
Leonardo agreed.
"Clearly it needs to be a POST-certified sworn law enforcement officer on the other side of that computer tapping those keys."
Listen to recording excerpt in player below:
But video from inside the operation shows that not only were members of Sawyer's team doing the typing, they were also concerned about there not being video of them doing it.
"They needed videos of them, law enforcement chatting," one of the so-called "chatters" told a videographer.
"I'm not getting your faces," the man replied.
"Yeah. I just... I'm cool with it," she responded, "but they wanted to show law enforcement — not us — touching the phones."
Watch excerpt from secretly recorded video in the player below:
NewsChannel 5 Investigates asked Leonardo, "And the fact that they end up with people who are not law enforcement officers tapping the keys, those cases are in trouble?"
"Those cases are in serious, serious trouble," he agreed.
The recordings also show the plan was to try to lure the predators to a Shell station in Robertson County because the officers felt the prosecutor in this district would be more likely to work with them on their cases.
Millersville detective Mike Candler referred to fellow detective Todd Dorris as "Mater," a character from the animated "Cars" film series.
"Mater there is best friends with the district attorney in Robertson County," Candler said. "They went to high school together. So he said, 'Well, let's put this here so I can talk to him.' And we lock everything in. So he won't stand for nothing, and they all hate pedophiles."
And when they did get one suspect who had bicycled up Interstate 65 from Nashville thinking he was going to have sex with a 12-year-old girl, Millersville police took the man into custody.
"They said he was peddling like a son of a bitch," Candler recounted to the chatters.
Then, according to the recordings, the suspect was brought to a Millersville fire hall.
He didn't want to talk to the police, so they turned him over to Craig Sawyer's film crew.
"I just walked out, and y'all's little camera crew went in and starting asking questions — and he just gave everything up," Candler said.
One of the chatters sounded perplexed.
"The camera crew went in?"
"Yeah."
"Is that...?"
Candler quickly answered, "It's fine. We didn't prompt them, we didn't prompt them to ask any questions. We didn't have them do anything. It was unsolicited, and he just started what we call spontaneous utterance — just laying it out there."
Watch excerpt from secretly recorded video in the player below:
Leonardo had a different opinion.
"Hands-down, the confession is not coming in for a host of different reasons because you have a private third party doing the interrogation and sitting here and filming it. That's not coming into evidence. It's just not."
NewsChannel 5 Investigates asked, "So again this guy could walk, probably would walk?"
"Yeah, he certainly would walk, certainly would walk based on the facts that we are going over here," Leonardo said. "I don't see how this prosecution could stick."
Still, the suspect was booked into Robertson County Jail — which, the detective grimly hinted, could be his last stop.
"Honestly, I wouldn't doubt he gets, comes up missing in the jail," Candler said.
"Yeah, I agree. I would like that," one of the chatters answered.
The detective continued, "That's a Robertson County thing. Robertson, Maury, Hickman, Monroe and Giles — you're not coming out of the jail."
Leonardo was stunned.
"What does that mean? What does he know that the rest of us do not?"
We noted, "Essentially, it sounds like he is saying we are taking him to a jurisdiction where we don't think he'll come out alive."
"Well, yeah, that could be the inference that's drawn," Leonardo said.
"That's very scary, and I think that's cause for an investigation by the TBI to determine what was meant by that."
The NewsChannel 5 legal analyst said he believes Millersville PD is now a rogue agency where conspiracy theorists have decided the laws don't apply to themselves.
NewsChannel 5 Investigates asked Leonardo, "From what you've heard in these recordings, is this a police department that's out of control?"
"It sounds to me like it's a police department that never had control," he answered.
"This is jeopardizing the safety of the citizens of Millersville and something needs to be done."
Craig Sawyer has gone on InfoWars and other far-right podcasts attacking NewsChannel 5 for our investigation of Taylor and referring to this reporter as a "pedophile protector."
He has claimed this predator sting generated enough evidence to charge another 70 people, although there's no way to tell if that's true.
Robertson County prosecutors have not returned NewsChannel 5's phone calls.
In cases where the suspects did not travel to meet the 12-year-old girl, one potential obstacle could be, according to the recordings, the "chatter house" was located in Sumner County — which is an entirely different judicial district.
It's not clear whether prosecutors there would take up any potential cases.
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Do you have information that would help me with my investigation? Send me your tips: phil.williams@newschannel5.com
Here is how this investigation has unfolded:
May 20, 2024: Meet Millersville's conspiracy cop. He imagines sinister plots involving some of the country's most prominent political figures. 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.
May 22, 2024: The controversy over Millersville's conspiracy cop 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. You can continue reading Part Two at this link.
May 24, 2024: 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. You can read more of this installment at this link.
May 28, 2024: New podcast video, uncovered by NewsChannel 5 Investigates, reveals how Shawn Taylor spread false and dangerous conspiracy theories about last year's Covenant School shooting that left three students and three staff members dead. You can click here to review that story.
May 28, 2024: Anna Caudill agreed to watch the video of Shawn Taylor knowing there might be only so much she could handle. Among the three children and three adults killed that day was her friend, Katherine Koonce. You can read more of Anna's story by tapping on this link.
June 3, 2024: 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 made those comments as he turned to a group of far-right podcasters to defend himself. Tap this link to read from those Taylor's accused.
June 4, 2024: Millersville officials are standing with their assistant police chief and his bizarre conspiracy theories regarding Nashville's Covenant School shooting. Read how this meeting played out at this link.
June 5, 2024: 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 attorney for Bryan Morris and Shawn Taylor. To understand the role he plays, you can read that here.
June 6, 2024: In Shawn Taylor's world — in the immortal words of Taylor Swift — "I'm the problem, it's me." I explain how we got here in this piece, which you can click on here.
June 18, 2024: Millersville's conspiracy cop now has his very own conspiracy-minded attorney. Now, our NewsChannel 5 investigation has discovered that Todd Callender's own theories are sometimes even more far-fetched than Taylor’s twisted view of the world. Click here to read more about Shawn Taylor’s attorney.
July 15, 2024: 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. Read more on this investigation by tapping here.
July 22, 2024: 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. You can read more about that by clicking here.
July 23, 2024: 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. You can read more about that by tapping here.
July 29, 2024: 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. Read more about that by clicking here.
August 5, 2024: 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. You can catch up on the investigation by tapping here.
August 12, 2024: In a perplexing pair of podcast interviews, the Millersville chief of police says the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation has begun limiting his department's access to certain sensitive law enforcement data. Read more about this latest development here.
August 26, 2024: He has helped to fuel some of the wild conspiracy theories inside the troubled Millersville Police Department. He is a self-proclaimed pedophile hunter who believes America is controlled by what he calls "a satanic cult masquerading as Jews." Read more about Craig Sawyer by clicking here.
August 27, 2024: Craig Sawyer’s response to my investigation illustrates how conspiracy theorists frequently use wild accusations and blustery language to avoid giving real answers about their bizarre beliefs. Tap here to watch as we dissect his 90-minute diatribe.
September 4, 2024: Tennessee Bureau of Investigation agents raided the Millersville Police Department and Shawn Taylor’s home, executing a pair of search warrants as the criminal investigation into the troubled agency enters a dramatic new phase. Read more about this new twist in the Millersville investigation.
September 10, 2024: “No, a TBI agent didn't pee in Shawn Taylor's tub, agency says in response to Taylor's latest claim.” The headline says it all. Click here.
September 19, 2024: QAnon-aligned voices of the far right are threatening retaliation against a judge, a district attorney and Tennessee Bureau of Investigation agents for their roles in the recent Millersville raids. Details posted here.
October 7, 2024: A well-known Arizona election denier says his group — working through Millersville's conspiracy-minded assistant police chief — gained access to a highly confidential federal database that tracks Americans’ banking transactions and other financial data. Read the exclusive story here.
October 22, 2024: Two key GOP lawmakers – the chairman and a member of the state House committee that oversees the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation – recently warned the agency that it could face “unnecessary political fallout” if it does not end its criminal probe into the troubled Millersville Police Department. You can read the letter here.
October 24, 2024: A letter from two GOP lawmakers, which appeared to threaten the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation for its probe of the Millersville Police Department, was the "wrong way to go," House Speaker Cameron Sexton said. But there is more to the speaker's reaction.
December 9, 2024: Shawn Taylor, the conspiracy-minded cop now at the center of a criminal investigation, has resigned from his position as assistant chief for the Millersville Police Department after less than a year on the job. Read more here.
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