this post was submitted on 17 Jul 2024
786 points (98.9% liked)

News

23310 readers
3687 users here now

Welcome to the News community!

Rules:

1. Be civil


Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban. Do not respond to rule-breaking content; report it and move on.


2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.


Obvious right or left wing sources will be removed at the mods discretion. We have an actively updated blocklist, which you can see here: https://lemmy.world/post/2246130 if you feel like any website is missing, contact the mods. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted seperately but not to the post body.


3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.


Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.


4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source.


Posts which titles don’t match the source won’t be removed, but the autoMod will notify you, and if your title misrepresents the original article, the post will be deleted. If the site changed their headline, the bot might still contact you, just ignore it, we won’t delete your post.


5. Only recent news is allowed.


Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.


6. All posts must be news articles.


No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials or celebrity gossip is allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis.


7. No duplicate posts.


If a source you used was already posted by someone else, the autoMod will leave a message. Please remove your post if the autoMod is correct. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.


8. Misinformation is prohibited.


Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.


9. No link shorteners.


The auto mod will contact you if a link shortener is detected, please delete your post if they are right.


10. Don't copy entire article in your post body


For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 

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

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] [email protected] 281 points 3 months ago (2 children)

And start whacking some — you know, not to make it political — but whole leftist, corrupt, pedophile, this evil thing that's taken over Nashville,

Hmm, yes, it's the left that need to tone down the rhetoric.

[–] [email protected] 152 points 3 months ago (3 children)

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?

[–] [email protected] 79 points 3 months ago (2 children)

They are just desperate to find a Liberal child molester

[–] [email protected] 127 points 3 months ago (5 children)
[–] [email protected] 41 points 3 months ago (2 children)

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?

[–] [email protected] 53 points 3 months ago (2 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 3 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.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 months ago (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (1 children)

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

[–] skulblaka 1 points 3 months ago (1 children)

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"

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago

And confession is voluntary so only the true believers bother with it lol. But still better than having to do literally nothing to atone for your sins except say you love Jesus.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

I think it is rather that conservatism has nothing to do with being conservative really at the end of the day, that is just the team colors these people wear to identify what team they are on.

Conservatives are conservative so they can hate without guilt and so they can control and possess with violence and be rewarded for it. From this angle the synergy heinous shitheads see in being a Republican and being a pedophile (but also defining your public persona completely around hating pedophiles too) is pretty straightforward in my opinion. Also probably the most pathetic thing on the face of the earth.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 3 months ago (1 children)

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).

[–] [email protected] 21 points 3 months ago (1 children)

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

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 months ago (1 children)

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

[–] [email protected] 11 points 3 months ago (2 children)

Like they would accept it as being non-bias.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 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 🙄

[–] Grandwolf319 0 points 3 months ago

Just because your audience doesn’t listen to reason, it doesn’t mean that presenting a good argument is worthless.

At least your doing things in good faith, we could leave it to the individual to decide if they want to take the moral high ground.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 3 months ago

sigh

That list grows so damn quickly.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 3 months ago

Oh man it just keeps getting longer.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 months ago (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 months ago (1 children)

He also graduated from Liberty University.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

His poor mother. Her son, getting outed as a Republican. She must be so ashamed.

[–] [email protected] 55 points 3 months ago (2 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 37 points 3 months ago (1 children)

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."

[–] [email protected] 24 points 3 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.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Jfc what do you do for a living lol

[–] [email protected] 26 points 3 months ago (1 children)

General IT work. One was remote user support, the other was remote MSP work. Lots of really cool people in the industry, but apparently some super sketch peeps.

[–] [email protected] 22 points 3 months ago (1 children)

At my last job, the CTO told me how he was promoted, and how his predecessor was in the national news. Used state owned computers to chat up a minor for months and then flew across the country to meet up and was arrested. Funny enough, he was not a cross dresser or liberal. Just a small town conservative older white guy that nobody suspected and everyone respected.

[–] [email protected] 23 points 3 months ago

That's practically the checklist for child rapists:

☑ Older
☑ White
☑ Small town
☑ Conservative
☑ Well-respected

I'm guessing religious? Respected pillar of the church?

Yeah... These guys know how to present themselves in ways to avoid suspicion.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 3 months ago (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 3 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.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

The FBI already investigate LEO across the country more than a decade ago and found that white supremacists were actively infiltrating our police force. Nothing has been done about this finding.

White supremacists are “infiltrating” into police forces in the same way I infiltrate into my buddies house… when they specifically invite me over to hang out with them at their house and stand up and come over and hug me with a warm greeting when I show up.

There is NO sense of infiltration here, rather we are looking at a fresh turd on a hot day (police), and there are flies all over it (white supremacists).