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

Millersville cops team up with so-called pedophile hunter who blames 'satanic cult masquerading as Jews'

Town's conspiracy cop warns about "kids that are actively being smuggled, being chained to walls, that are being raped." Yet, conspiracy theorists can produce no photos or videos as evidence

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WTVF) — An exclusive NewsChannel 5 investigation has now discovered the man who has helped to fuel some of the wild conspiracy theories inside the troubled Millersville Police Department.

That man, our investigation discovered, is a self-proclaimed pedophile hunter from Tucson who believes America is controlled by what he calls "a satanic cult masquerading as Jews."

And, like some of the Millersville cops, Craig "Sawman" Sawyer has a history of seeing conspiracies where there are none.

Watch full investigation on NewsChannel 5 at 6 p.m.

"Some of the information we're dealing with right now, it has to do with kids that are actively being smuggled, being chained to walls, that are being raped," said Shawn Taylor, the conspiracy theorist who was later hired as the assistant police chief in Millersville, a community of about 6,000 just north of Nashville.

After years of voicing some bizarre conspiracy theories, Taylor decided back in May to gather a group of like-minded MAGA activists to run a child sex-predator sting.

That group was led by Craig Sawyer.

"My name is Saw. I'm a Navy SEAL. Defending the innocent is my trade," Sawyer said in the 2013 introduction to an episode of Animal Planet's "Rhino Wars."

After his military service, Sawyer found a new career playing the hero on television's Rhino Wars and in a handful of sniper-related TV shows.

His next move: making a film about going after the pedophile rings he imagined his team of veterans would find on the southern border.

"I know that for this kind of work — especially dealing with cartels — I'd need a team of guys I could depend upon for high-threat security," Sawyer said in the "Contraland" movie.

"So I put together what I call the VIPR team: Veterans Interdicting Pedophile Rings."

Sawyer would also create a nonprofit group, Veterans for Child Rescue, although there's no evidence the group ever rescued any children — and the film doesn't show them actually interdicting any pedophile rings at the border.

Then in 2018 while filming "Contraland," Sawyer led local TV crews in Tucson to an encampment that he and his documentary team thought might have been their big break.

"What we found was a tree that looks like a rape tree back over here," the former NAVY Seal said. Showing a piece of wood nailed to a tree, Sawyer declared. "This may have been a place where a child was made to hold onto this."

Sawyer — who also portrays himself as a trained federal investigator — breathlessly reported his group's stunning conclusion.

"They're telling me this looks like a child rape camp," he said, letting out a big sigh. "That's what they're telling me."

In fact, Tucson Police reported there was no evidence it was anything but a homeless camp.

Still, as the local newspaper reported, the lack of evidence did not stamp out the flames of a sex-trafficking conspiracy theory that had caught fire.

These days, Sawyer continues to push his conspiracy theories on far-right podcasts, including unproven claims about planeloads of children being flown into the U.S. by sex traffickers — which is what he says brought him to Middle Tennessee back in May.

"And one of those locations is near Nashville, Tennessee, that they are flying the children into," Sawyer claimed. "So there's a lot of child trafficking around Nashville."

In fact, Nashville police say they have never had any reason to believe that such flights actually exist.

Of course, like with most conspiracy theories, Craig Sawyer with his hotshot Navy SEAL and law enforcement credentials has never actually produced any evidence. There are no photos or videos of planes, nor of children in cages.

But he does have a video camera where he makes the most outlandish of claims, soliciting donations in the name of combating child sex trafficking.

"In the almost four years that I worked with Veterans for Child Rescue, I'm not aware that they ever actually combated child trafficking — now, therein lies my actual concern," said former Sawyer associate Kim Kelley.

Kelley said, that as a child trafficking survivor herself, she came to the group hoping to make a difference.

Read the rest at the URL below:

https://www.newschannel5.com/news/newschannel-5-investigates/franklin-politics/millersville-cops-team-up-with-so-called-pedophile-hunter-who-blames-satanic-cult-masquerading-as-jews

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WuacLDwkE3E