A central Kansas police force sparked a firestorm by raiding a newspaper and the publisher’s home

MARION, Kan. – A small central Kansas police division is going through a torrent of grievance for raiding a native newspaper’s administrative center and the proprietor and writer’s home, seizing computer systems and mobile phones, and, in the writer’s view, stressing his 98-year-old mom sufficient to reason her weekend demise.

Several press freedom watchdogs condemned the Marion police’s movements as a blatant violation of the U.S. Constitution’s coverage for a loose press. The Marion County Record’s editor and writer, Eric Meyer, labored along with his personnel Sunday to reconstruct tales, commercials and different fabrics for its subsequent version Wednesday, whilst he took time in the afternoon to supply a native funeral home with information about his mom, Joan, the paper’s co-owner.

A seek warrant tied the raids by Marion police, led Friday morning by Chief Gideon Cody, to a dispute between the newspaper and a native eating place proprietor, Kari Newell. She is accusing the newspaper of invading her privateness and illegally gaining access to information about her and her using file and urged that the newspaper focused her after she threw Meyer and a reporter out of eating place when it hosted an match for the congressman who represents the space.

While Meyer noticed Newell’s court cases — which he stated have been unfaithful — as prompting the raids, he additionally believes the newspaper’s competitive protection of native politics and problems performed a position. He stated the newspaper used to be analyzing Cody’s previous paintings with the Kansas City, Missouri, police as neatly.

“This is the type of stuff that, you know, that Vladimir Putin does, that Third World dictators do,” Meyer said during an interview in his office. “This is Gestapo tactics from World War II.”

The raids happened in a the town of about 1,900 folks, nestled amongst rolling prairie hills, about 150 miles (241 kilometers) southwest of Kansas City.

Meyer stated that one Record reporter suffered an harm to a finger when Cody wrested her cellular phone out of her hand, consistent with the file. The newspaper’s surveillance video confirmed officials studying that reporter her rights whilst Cody watched, regardless that she wasn’t arrested or detained. Newspaper workers have been hustled out of the construction whilst the seek persisted for greater than 90 mins, consistent with the pictures.

Meanwhile, Meyer stated, police concurrently raiding his home seized computer systems, his cellular phone and the home’s web router.

But as Meyer fielded messages from journalists and editors as a long way away as London and reviewed pictures from the newsroom’s surveillance digital camera, Newell used to be receiving demise threats from as a long way away, she stated. She stated the Record engages in “tabloid trash reporting” and used to be seeking to hush her up.

“I fully believe that the intent was to do harm and merely tarnish my reputation, and I think if had it been left at that, I don’t think that it would have blown up as big as it was,” Newell stated in a phone interview.

Newell stated she threw Meyer and the Record reporter out of the match for Republican U.S. Rep. Jake LaTurner match at the request of others who’re disillusioned with the “toxic” newspaper. On the the town’s major side road, one storefront integrated a hand-crafted “Support Marion PD” signal.”

The police chief and other officials also attended and were acknowledged at the reception, and the Marion Police Department highlighted the event on its Facebook page.

LaTurner’s office did not immediately return phone messages left Sunday at his Washington and district offices seeking comment.

Newell said she believes the newspaper violated the law to get her personal information as it checked on the status of her driver’s license following a 2008 drunken driving conviction and other driving violations.

The newspaper countered that it received that information unsolicited, which it verified through public online records. It eventually decided not to run a story because it wasn’t sure the source who supplied it had obtained it legally. But the newspaper did run a story on the city council meeting, in which Newell herself confirmed she’d had a DUI conviction and that she had continued to drive even after her license was suspended.

A two-page search warrant, signed by a local judge, lists Newell as the victim of alleged crimes by the newspaper. When the newspaper asked for a copy of the probable cause affidavit required by law to issue a search warrant, the district court issued a signed statement saying no such affidavit was on file, the Record reported.

Cody, the police chief, defended the raid on Sunday, saying in an email to The Associated Press that while federal law usually requires a subpoena — not just a search warrant — to raid a newsroom, there is an exception “when there is reason to believe the journalist is taking part in the underlying wrongdoing.”

Cody did not give details about what that alleged wrongdoing entailed.

Cody, who was hired in late April as Marion’s police chief after serving 24 years in the Kansas City police, did not respond to questions about whether police filed a probable cause affidavit for the search warrant. He also did not answer questions about how police believe Newell was victimized.

Press freedom and civil rights organizations agreed that police, the local prosecutor’s office and the judge who signed off on the search warrant overstepped their authority.

“It seems like one of the most aggressive police raids of a news organization or entity in quite some time,” stated Sharon Brett, criminal director for the American Civil Liberties Union of Kansas, including that it appeared “quite an alarming abuse of authority.”

Seth Stern, director of advocacy for Freedom of the Press Foundation, said in a statement that the raid appeared to have violated federal law, the First Amendment, “and basic human decency.”

“The anti-press rhetoric that’s become so pervasive in this country has become more than just talk and is creating a dangerous environment for journalists trying to do their jobs,” Stern said.

Meyer said he has been flooded with offers of help from press freedom groups and other news organizations. But he said what he and his staff need is more hours in the day to get their next edition put together.

Both he and Newell are contemplating lawsuits — Newell against the newspaper and Meyer against the public officials who staged the raid.

As for the criticism of the raid as a violation of First Amendment rights, Newell said her privacy rights were violated, and they are “just as important as anybody else’s.”

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Beck reported from Omaha, Nebraska.

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