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.

Archived at https://web.archive.org/web/20240717120405/https://www.newschannel5.com/news/newschannel-5-investigates/franklin-politics/disturbing-recordings-from-inside-child-predator-sting-shows-police-maga-operatives-ignoring-laws

  • gibmiser@lemmy.world
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    5 months ago

    Let’s see, start from the conclusion that liberals are satanic pedophiles. Use non-law enforcement to identify liberals who must also be pedophiles. Entrap them and use whatever means necessary to take these evil satanic pedophiles off the streets.

    Sure, what could go wrong?

        • Billiam@lemmy.world
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          5 months ago

          Kinda funny how the party that isn’t sexually repressive or regressive doesn’t prey on children. I wonder what inferences could be drawn between conservative rhetoric and the sheer number of conservatives busted for child abuse. Is it just the power imbalance?

          • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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            5 months ago

            I think there are many reasons. For one thing, they have the Christian vote locked up, and the sort of Christianity they preach is one where you can do any manner of atrocious things, ask forgiveness, be forgiven, then repeat the cycle. So many clergy that are even in prison for being sex offenders still get defended by their former parishioners.

            Another is definitely a power imbalance thing, especially when there is a lot of evidence tying psychopathy to business success. Lacking any real moral code is fine when you’re a rich CEO. As Trump said, “when you’re wealthy, they let you do it.”

            A third is that there are a lot of Republican voters who are so rabidly anti-left that they will literally elect a sex offender (Jim Jordan) over a Democrat.

            I’m sure people can suggest others.

            • TimLovesTech (AuDHD)(he/him)@badatbeing.social
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              5 months ago

              Well this is all part of the cult indoctrination that has made conspiracy theories a cornerstone of how they interact and interpret the world.

              It’s going to take decades (or likely generations) to undo the damage done to the critical thinking of so much of this country. The fact that as you stated they would elect known sex offenders (Trump/Jim Jordon/Matt Gaetz) but still think it’s the “Radical Left” that is the demonic pedophiles is just cognitive dissonance at an alarming level.

            • Maggoty@lemmy.world
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              5 months ago

              I’d love to find the flavor of Christianity that says you need to confess your sins and accept just punishment from the government for them. Without the conservative wink next to “just punishment” of course.

              • metaldream@sopuli.xyz
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                5 months ago

                Catholicism requires penance for sins, but not government intervention. I think that’s as close as it gets

                • skulblaka@sh.itjust.works
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                  5 months ago

                  Yeah, but Catholic “penance” is frequently, “put $20 in the collection plate and say a dozen Hail Mary’s and then Jesus will love you again”

        • NABDad@lemmy.world
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          5 months ago

          Here’s the thing. I really believe that the Republican party is loaded to the gills with criminal creeps. However, if I were to share this list with any of my right-wing Christian acquaintances or (sigh) family, they’ll respond with “Democrats are worse!”

          Is there a similar list of Democrat Sexual predators, abusers, and enablers?

          Without a corresponding list, it makes it look like it’s just trying to make Republicans look bad (as opposed to just showing what they are).

          • flicker@lemmy.world
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            5 months ago

            Why not just ask them to provide one? If they’re even worse, it should be easy to find supporting information.

            • NABDad@lemmy.world
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              5 months ago

              I’d rather have both lists, and be able to point at the 53 pages of Republican predators and two pages of Democrat predators and say, "see the difference?"1

                • 20hzservers@lemmy.world
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                  5 months ago

                  You’re close, what they will actually do is say the list is proof of a cover up and that democrats just get away with it more. Source: My family 🙄

        • JasonDJ@lemmy.zip
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          5 months ago

          Samuel Jason Ingle, Dean of Asheville Christian Academy and a graduate of Liberty University has been arrested for engaging in a sexual act with a student. While registered independent, he chose the GOP primary ballot.

          That’s not fair man. I’m registered independent and chose a GOP primary ballot because I wanted to vote against Trump as many times as I could.

          I couldn’t imagine being in his position and being accused of being a Republican because of that.

      • Passerby6497@lemmy.world
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        5 months ago

        Which is funny to me, because I’ve had two coworkers in two different orgs catch a set of bracelets for enticement of a minor using a computer, and neither one was a liberal.

        • kescusay@lemmy.world
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          5 months ago

          Weirdly, same. Two different guys, both publicly pillars of the community. Both arrested for raping kids. In each case, they were just not at work one day, and our supervisors would just say, “So-and-so isn’t employed here anymore.”

          • Passerby6497@lemmy.world
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            5 months ago

            That happened to me (kinda) the first time. I found out early because I got a a call about taking the on call phone (while already on call), and we were told not to talk about anything about it and he was totally coming back. But looking up the filing, we knew he wasn’t ever coming back.

    • ChocoboRocket@lemmy.world
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      5 months ago

      While I agree with you on how ridiculous everything this person does and believes in, I am not sure how I feel about the “entrapment” part

      While I don’t know the specifics of the entrapment, anyone getting entrapped by pedophile bait should be exposed.

      It’s absolutely ridiculous to believe pedophiles only exist in one political camp, especially with mountains of evidence showing anyone with wealth, power, influence, and status (politicians, police, religious leaders, authority figures) are more likely to be pedophiles. It seems that politically, more Republicans than Democrats are convicted pedophiles, but it’s certainly not one or the other.

      “Hunting pedophiles” rings hollow when you truly believe that anyone who likes the letter R cannot be a pedophile.

      • psycotica0@lemmy.ca
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        5 months ago

        I’m not 100% sure it’s being used correctly here, but entrapment in general is when a police officer convinces or coerces a person into committing a crime, and then arresting them for that crime. So, if a police office is standing somewhere and you walk up to them and ask to buy drugs, they can arrest you for that. But if they are like “hey man, want to buy some drugs? Come on, it’s only $10. You know what, for you, first time is free. Just take them”, and then you take them, that is entrapment.

        The reason entrapment is problematic is because it’s hard to tell if you would have committed a crime, had the officer not pushed you into it. Maybe you were just feeling pressured and wanted the uncomfortable situation to go away, etc.

        As for not exposing entrapped people, there is this moral dilemma in general that often gets dramaticized in cop shows and movies, which is that the person we know is guilty gets away on a technicality or procedural issue. And at first blush that looks like a flaw. But actually it’s more like the lesser evil of a bad situation. Because what we don’t want is police using powers that erode the freedoms of the innocent people, like breaking into people’s homes and going through their stuff, or wire tapping, or torture, or whatever. Things we don’t want police to do to innocent people.

        If doing these things were “frowned upon”, but we still used the information we gained from it anyway, then it would be a viable police strategy. It’s a cost of doing business, but it gets the job done. Even if a single officer got fired for it, they could choose to matryr themselves to do the bad thing and get the guy. But we don’t want cops doing these things, because anything they do against a person they think might be guilty is something they could be doing to a person that’s actually innocent. So we kinda have to make the rule be that any information, no matter how good, that was gotten in a bad way becomes bad information that we all agree never to use. Because that’s the only way to make sure the police don’t want to do the bad things.

        It may let some guilty people go free, when the police screw up, but in theory it protects all of us against an escalating police state.