Kansas newspaper raided by police is vindicated after county agrees to pay $3M US | CBC Radio

Eric Meyer says he and his newspaper colleagues have proven that you can stand up to a bully and win.

Meyer is the editor and publisher of the Marion County Record, a newspaper in rural Kansas that had its offices raided by local police and county sheriff’s officers in 2023, sparking outcry about press freedom.

Now, in a court-approved agreement, Marion County will pay more than $3 million US for its role in the raid, and the sheriff’s office has issued an apology.

“If you’re bullied by the bullies, and you give them your lunch money day one, they want your hat the next day, your shoe the day after that, your bike the day after that,” Meyer told As It Happens host Nil Köksal. 

“At some point you have to stand up and say no.”

Publisher’s mother died after her home was raided

Police burst into the Record’s offices in August of 2023, rifled through reporters’ desks and seized cellphones and computers.

Officers also raided the home of Eric Meyer’s 98-year-old mother, Joan Meyer, who he lived with at the time and who was the paper’s co-owner. 

She died of sudden cardiac arrest the very next day, and Meyer believes the stress of the raid was a contributing factor. 

“She was very disconsolate about this,” Meyer said. “She wouldn’t eat, sleep, or do anything.”

Police body camera footage of the raid shows the elder Meyer looking visibly shaken as she stands in her nightgown with her walker, shouting at officers to get out of her house. 

According to search warrants, police were looking for evidence the newspaper had illegally obtained a copy of a local restaurateur’s driving record while reporting on her request for a city liquor license.

Officers also raided the home of a then-city council member — who Meyer says was a known opponent of the mayor — accusing her of illegally circulating the driving record by sending a cellphone screenshot to the city manager.

Meyer says the newspaper did nothing illegal. 

He says they received an unsolicited tip that the restaurateur had been driving illegally after being busted for driving under the influence, then verified that information using publicly available records. 

The Record ultimately decided not to publish the information, deciding it was not in the public interest.

“But we did tell the police we had this information, and that there was an allegation that the police were ignoring her driving illegally and were well aware of it,” Meyer said.

“We told them we got it from a source and we told them, ‘If you want any further information, just ask us.’ And they didn’t, they decided to raid our office instead.”

The raid also came after the paper had published a story digging into the background of then-police chief Gideon Cody.

Cody, who vehemently defended the raid at the time, has since resigned and is facing felony charge of interfering with a judicial process for allegedly instructing the restaurant owner to delete texts between them.

Two special prosecutors who reviewed the raid and its aftermath said nearly a year later that the Record, its staff and the former city council member had committed no crimes, the warrants signed by a judge contained inaccurate information from an “inadequate investigation,” and that the searches were not legally justified. 

Required apology

Under the court-approved agreement between the newspaper and the county, the estate of Meyer’s mother will receive $1 million US; Meyer, two former Record reporters and the paper’s business manager will split $1.1 million US; and Ruth Herbel, the former city council member, will receive $650,000 US.

“It’s kind of ironic,” Meyer said. “I think one of the things they were trying to do was put us out of business, and there’s enough money in there for a small operation to pretty well guarantee that we can weather almost anything for, you know, quite a few years.”

The agreement also required the sheriff’s office to issue an apology.

The sheriff’s office said it wanted “to express sincere regrets” over the searches. It said that the raids would not  have occurred if “established law had been reviewed and applied prior to the execution of the warrants.”

Other claims against the city and its police department are still in litigation.

Meyer says what happened in Marion County is part of a national trend in the U.S. of people in power bullying journalists simply for doing their jobs.

“Anything that you do, if you write anything about them that’s not exactly what they want to have said, you’re evil, you’re fake news,” he said. “It’s something we have to fight.”