NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WTVF) — As the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation zeroes in on Millersville police, the department's controversial assistant police chief and his allies are going on the attack.
Not long after TBI agents ended their search of police headquarters Wednesday night, Assistant Police Chief Shawn Taylor turned to some far-right allies to tell his story, and those allies immediately launched their own campaign in Taylor's defense.
"We are live with breaking news, the biggest corruption story in America," declared podcaster Kim Yeater.
There — in the darkest corners of the internet where the most bizarre theories of the QAnon conspiracy movement abound — "from the harvesting of organs to adrenochrome, guys this is real stuff," Yeater declared the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation raids on the Millersville Police Department are fueling new conspiracies.
"Shawn Taylor, assistant chief of Millersville Police Department, just had his home invaded — with no warrant," the podcaster falsely claimed.
In fact, the search of Shawn Taylor's home was based on a warrant issued by a judge.
On the far-right Patriot Party News podcast — where a co-host began the show by insisting that "Q has been pretty much on target" — the conspiracy-minded assistant police chief presented himself as a victim.
"It's disheartening to know that you have law enforcement at the state level, district attorneys and judges that are executing search warrants on an agency that is trying to take on corruption," Taylor said.
NewsChannel 5 Investigates has learned that agents were looking for files that Taylor and Millersville PD may have compiled, using sensitive law enforcement data, as Taylor pursued his bizarre conspiracy theories, potentially even investigating his political enemies.
Taylor, again, saw a potential conspiracy.
"One of the TBI agents that we were looking at, and, you know, we believe that we've got reasonable suspicion to believe that he's involved because his name keeps popping up, he was one of the ones that helped execute the search warrant on us today."
Taylor has claimed some of the most powerful political figures in the world are involved in child sex trafficking.
And he now claims that TBI Director David Rausch was put in place by that same cabal.
Also coming to Taylor's defense: the man behind what appears to have been a botched child predator sting run by a controversial nonprofit group out of Tucson.
"What people don't realize is that ties directly into the Iran deal that Obama did," said Craig "Sawman" Sawyer, founder of the controversial group Veterans for Child Rescue. "Shawn Taylor investigated and he found out too much. That's my personal opinion,"
Following questions raised by NewsChannel 5 Investigates, agents were also looking for evidence that the lead detective in that case may have committed perjury.
"That's inside baseball," Sawyer told the PPN podcasters. "That's law enforcement stuff. That's not the business of any news reporter and that's not my business."
While the TBI continues its investigation, Taylor and his allies are hoping to rally like-minded people to rise up in opposition to the scrutiny he now faces.
"We need to get on people like Tucker Carlson," he said. "This needs to reach the highest levels. This needs to go national."
🧵🧵🧵Millersville City Attorney Bryant Kroll puts out a statement that "clarifies" the intent of the TBI raids of City Hall, claiming the agency isn't really investigating who we think it is investigating. Here's a breakdown of why that "clarification" doesn't make sense. 1/ pic.twitter.com/OQpgJeqOYC
— Phil Williams (@NC5PhilWilliams) September 5, 2024
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.