NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WTVF) — Millersville's conspiracy cop now has his very own conspiracy-minded attorney.
Recently, the Millersville City Commission postponed a special meeting to discuss the hiring of assistant police chief Shawn Taylor — and whether his bizarre conspiracy theories make him unfit for the job — at the request of Colorado attorney Todd Callender.
Now, our NewsChannel 5 investigation has discovered that Callender's own conspiracy theories are sometimes even more far-fetched than Taylor’s twisted view of the world.
In some cases, he suggests violence might be warranted.
According to a review of various podcasts in which Todd Callender has appeared in recent years, Callender argues that conspiracy theories have gotten a bum rap.
"Guess what: cops are conspiracy theorists for a living. So put it out of your head that this is some kind of a bad thing,” the attorney said in one podcast.
Callender imagines a secret United Nations plot to kill billions of people and take their land.
“Do you not yet understand that your government isn’t here to help you? They are here to kill you. So why would we even listen to them?” he declared in a different podcast.
In another podcast, he warned: “We have been marked for extinction. People don’t seem to understand this.”
And in another: “We know that the powers would like seven billion of us to be gone. We also know they want our property.”
The wildfire on Maui, he claims, was actually a secret energy weapon unleashed on the island.
And the toxic train derailment at East Palestine, Ohio, was also part of that plot.
“Wuhan became the first 5G city. They turned on 10,000 5G transmitters — and lo and behold people are getting sick," Callender said in one podcast.
In fact, Wuhan was not the first 5G city, but that doesn’t stop Callender from claiming that COVID was part of a secret plan to kill people.
“If you go into the hospital and you’ve got some disability, they will kill you.”
He falsely claimed doctors were getting paid to kill patients hospitalized with COVID, and he spread fear that the COVID-19 vaccine was actually a murder weapon.
Callender filed a lawsuit against the US Department of Defense.
“I presented that to them in my case and told them, ‘Here’s the science. These will kill all of your soldiers.' We sued them to stop them.”
When the COVID vaccine did not kill everyone who took the shot, Callender came up with a new conspiracy theory.
“It’s basically vaccine AIDS. And right now they are coming to understand this, people are showing up HIV positive.”
And when that turned out not to be true, he imagined that the film "The Matrix" was proof of the secret plan to turn people into slaves — who are no longer fully human — under the control of sinister forces.
“They fooled these people into being batteries, into being power sources," Callender said. "For those people that got the shots, they are actually now a power source.”
Strangely, in Callender’s mind, the movie itself was part of the plot.
“They show us these movies like "The Matrix" to predictive program us, and now we are in the process of actually witnessing this happening.”
But some of Todd Callender’s ideas are more than just wacky.
He also hints that violence may, in some cases, be justified.
“They are here to kill you. They are going to kill you. What are you going to do about it? You are going to die anyway. Stand up and fight,” the attorney demanded in one podcast.
Callender sees a world controlled by a Zionist cabal and UN secret agents who deserve to be murdered.
“The UN guys, the blue-helmet guys are going to try to integrate into police forces, integrate into our military — and I pray that they get fragged."
Fragging is the deliberate killing of an unpopular member of one's own military or police force.
Then, there are his disproven fears about 5G cell towers.
“We’re all being nuked right now — everyone of us.”
Those towers have been burned by conspiracy theorists around the world.
Here is the clip where Callender, licensed by the @CoSupremeCourt, talks about his “global initiative to empower people” to attack and destroy 5G cell towers. pic.twitter.com/M2aTvGs9v7
— Phil Williams (@NC5PhilWilliams) June 19, 2024
Callender recommends notifying local police that you consider them to be a danger to your health.
“You’ve put them on notice that you are being battered, you are being harmed," he instructs listeners.
"As a result, you have a right to defend yourself. So either the police take that damn tower down and stop the harm – or it gives you notice to them that you are going to do that.”
And it's Callender who will argue that Shawn Taylor's bizarre conspiracy theories are completely normal.
Callender has argued that Taylor is a "whistleblower," not a conspiracy theorist.
NewsChannel 5 Investigates reached out to Callender to request an interview, but he never responded.
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.
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