Officers within the Kansas city searched the newspaper’s places of work and the house of an area councilwoman on Friday, seizing computer systems, mobile phones and recordsdata. The 98-year-old co-owner of the newspaper, Joan Meyer, died an afternoon after her area used to be additionally searched; the Record attributed her death to the tension of the development.
The seek through Marion police and sheriff’s deputies — which Record editor Eric Meyer decried as “Gestapo tactics” — has elicited sweeping condemnation from press-freedom advocates, together with the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, which suggested police to go back seized subject material in a letter signed through The Washington Post and greater than 30 news organizations. Advocates have cited state and federal regulations protective reporters, in addition to the Fourth Amendment’s prohibition on unlawful searches and seizures through govt officers. The Society of Professional Journalists presented Monday to help cover the Record’s legal fees.
The newspaper’s legal professional protested the hunt in a letter on Sunday to the city’s police leader, Gideon Cody, pronouncing the seized subject material used to be safe beneath a state protect regulation, and later forwarded the letter to the KBI.
A KBI spokesperson instructed the Star it used to be the “lead law enforcement agency” having a look into the topic, however presented no additional information about what brought about the KBI to change into concerned or the thrust of its investigation.
Criticism of the police raid has targeted consideration on Cody, who joined the small-town police pressure in April after wrapping up a 24-year occupation with the Kansas City police division.
Eric Meyer said later that the Record have been investigating allegations that Cody have been accused of sexual harassment in Kansas City, however the paper had no longer but revealed a tale about it.
However, the police raid — led through Cody with 4 different Marion officials and two sheriff’s deputies — seems to had been caused through an it seems that unrelated topic.
The seek warrant used to be issued through an area pass judgement on after a Marion eating place proprietor, Kari Newell, alleged that one of the newspaper’s journalists had used an unlawful laptop seek to procure sealed state information about her arrest and quotation for using beneath the affect in 2008 — a disclosure she alleged used to be supposed to scuttle her utility for a liquor license. Journalists “are not exempt from the laws they blast others for not following,” Newell mentioned in a observation closing week.
Eric Meyer denied closing week that it had got the information — which the Record additionally had no longer in the past revealed — via illicit way or shared it with an area council member, as Newell alleged. He mentioned the information got here from a supply who one by one leaked the information to the council member, whose house used to be additionally raided on Friday as section of the warrant.
Meyer used to be unavailable for additional touch upon Tuesday.
KBI’s director, Tony Mattivi, seemed to shield the raid in a observation on Sunday, pronouncing contributors of the media aren’t “above the law.” He also known as freedom of the click “a vanguard of American democracy.”
In an interview with The Post on Tuesday, the Record’s attorney, Bernard Rhodes, expressed optimism in regards to the KBI’s involvement.
“I agree the media is not above the law, but in this country it’s not illegal to be a reporter,” mentioned Rhodes. “That statement does not concern me one bit because no one broke the law.”
He added, “A confidential source provided a document, we attempted to verify that, which one would hope a reporter would do. They’re attempting to criminalize being a reporter, and that’s not what this country is about.”