UPDATED BELOW. Marion, Kansas, population 2000, is not the place you’d expect the police to raid the weekly newspaper. Yet that’s what happened to the Marion County Register, where Marion’s Not-So-Finest confiscated cellphones and computers of reporters, as well as servers.

That’s the type of incident you’d expect to see in the former Soviet Union, or current day Communist China. Not in a tiny town in the middle of Nowhere, Kansas, which is solidly Republican to boot.

But on Friday, the entire five-man police force and two sheriff’s deputies raided not only the newspaper’s office, but the publisher’s home, as well.

From “The Death of Stalin.” Tenor.com.

So what did the Marion County Register publish that was illegal? Nothing! The newspaper had received information about the owner of a local restaurant with a sketchy past, but hadn’t published any of it.

It all started on August 2 with a public forum for US Rep. Jake LaTurner (R) at Kari’s Kitchen, a local restaurant. However, Kari Newell, owner of the eatery, asked Police Chief Gideon Cody to remove Register publisher and owner Eric Meyer along with reporter Phyllis Zorn. Remember — this was a public event.

As a result, the Register published an article about the incident. After publication, Zorn received a private Facebook message from an anonymous source with an interesting tidbit about Kari Newell — a letter from the KS Department of Revenue. Apparently Kari has been driving with a suspended license after a 2008 drunken driving citation. In short, she’s been illegally driving for the past 15 years.

Now she wants to restore her license.

But perhaps Newell suddenly grew a conscience because she’s applying for a liquor license for her catering business.

However, publisher Eric Meyer — a former journalism instructor at the U of Illinois — did his due diligence about the scoop. He suspected the information may have had its origins with Newell’s husband, who recently filed for divorce. So Meyer decided not to publish, and instead alerted the police.

Police Raid the Newspaper and a Private Home

You know the saying, No good deed goes unpunished? Rather being grateful to Meyer for the info, police contacted Kari Newell. Then, at a city council meeting, Newell accused the Register of illegally obtaining and disseminating sensitive documents. Which, as we know, is not true — the paper did not publish this information. Moreover, arrest records are part of a public record anyway.

And, on Thursday morning, the Register published a story that set the record straight.

But the day after, before 11 am on Friday, police descended upon the office of the Register, along with the private home of Eric Meyer. They came with a search warrant, signed by Marion County District Court Magistrate Judge Laura Viar. The warrant included the following, according to the Kansas Reflector:

The search warrant identifies two pages worth of items that law enforcement officers were allowed to seize, including computer software and hardware, digital communications, cellular networks, servers and hard drives, items with passwords, utility records, and all documents and records pertaining to Newell. The warrant specifically targeted ownership of computers capable of being used to “participate in the identity theft of Kari Newell.”

Meanwhile, a simultaneous raid was going on at the home of Eric Meyer.

Freelance writer and MSNBC columnist Marisa Kabas interviewed Meyer late on Friday evening for her Substack. Meyer told her:

I was at my home. I stay here with my 98-year-old mother and she was actually waiting for her meal to arrive from Meals on Wheels. And I thought when I heard the knocking, that was a meal person. I know they normally just leave it outside and no, it was a couple of police officers …

I had no idea what they were doing there. They said “we’re here to execute a search warrant.” And at that point, I kind of figured out what it was, because of the blustering that I’d heard from Kari earlier in the week. But, yeah, I didn’t know quite what they wanted to do. I said, “guys, you’re really making a very serious mistake here.” But what ran through my head was the old saying that when the police say something, you’ve got to do it. There’s time to object to it later. Don’t object to it then, or they can charge you with interfering with law enforcement. 

So I just told them that I thought they were making a serious mistake and they said they’re just doing their jobs. And being a small enough town, I knew who they were. One of them was a part-time officer and he was wearing his bulletproof vest on the outside, and I know the new uniform requirements in the city, where they’re supposed to wear it on the inside of their shirt. 

But while the raid was certainly stressful for Eric Meyer, it in essence killed his mother. After the raid she refused to eat. She refused to go to bed. And later, Joan Meyer collapsed and died.

What Happens in Kansas Doesn’t Stay in Kansas

Marion, KS, may be a dot on the map, but this flagrant violation of journalistic rights has blown up across the free world.

The New York Times — the “paper of record” — published an article about the raid. The NYT was joined by The Washington Post and Dow Jones, the publisher of The Wall Street Journal in signing a letter condemning the raid, which they sent to Police Chief Gideon Cody.

In the UK, The Guardian and The Independent also reported on the Kansas raid.

Plus, Seth Stern of the Freedom of the Press Foundation said in a statement about the incident:

This looks like the latest example of American law enforcement officers treating the press in a manner previously associated with authoritarian regimes.

Steve Lehto, a Michigan attorney, expressed his outrage at his YouTube channel.

But it looks like Police Chief Cody may have some skeletons in his past, too. In his interview with Marisa Kabas, Eric Meyer revealed that the Marion County Register has been investigating Cody, after Cody came onboard with the town of Marion two months ago. The chief had previously been on the police force in Kansas City, MO, and immediately the Register started getting calls about him. Meyer said:

When he was named Chief just two months ago, we got an outpouring of calls from his former co-workers making a wide array of allegations against him saying that he was about to be demoted at his previous job and that he retired to avoid demotion and punishment over sexual misconduct charges and other things. 

Meyer told Kabas that they never ran the story because none of the sources would go on record. Nor were they able to obtain Cody’s personnel file. But, wondered Meyer, could this be the real reason for the raid?

But the allegations—including the identities of who made the allegations—were on one of the computers that got seized. I may be paranoid that this has anything to do with it, but when people come and seize your computer, you tend to be a little paranoid.

Paranoid? Perhaps not. When authorities use carte blanche to raid a small town newspaper office for getting too close to truth, then Houston, we have a problem. 

UPDATED: As of Wednesday, the local prosecutor has withdrawn the search warrant and the items seized will be returned.

Featured image: AI generated image of KS small town. Brand X Studio.