by Pa Rock
Citizen Journalist
(Note: I initially blogged about the police raid on a small Kansas newspaper, "The Marion County Record," back on August 14, 2023, with a follow-up on August 17, 2023. For those who would like more information about this unwarranted police assault on press freedom, those two articles contain quite a bit of good material.)
The local Republican congressman was holding a public forum at a cafe in Marion, Kansas, in the summer of 2023 when the cafe owner decided that she did not want news staff from the county's weekly newspaper, "The Marion County Record," in her restaurant during the public meeting, and she ordered them out. The congressman's staff was apparently not involved in that decision, and they apologized to the newspaper staff over the incident.
The cafe operator complained publicly and on her Facebook page about the local newspaper.
Sometime later the cafe operator learned that the newspaper had in its possession some negative information about her driving record. The local editor later said that was true. He said they had been given the information by a third party and had chosen not to print it because the newspaper felt that it was being "set up."
Nonetheless, the cafe operator complained to the police that the newspaper possessed information about her which the paper should not have.
The local police chief was able to obtain warrants charging the paper with "identity theft and computer crimes," and all five members of the town's police force along with two county deputies raided the office and the home of the paper's publisher and editor. The officers took computers, telephones, and reporting materials.
(Two independent prosecutors later said that no crimes had been committed by the newspaper, and that the warrants used in the raid relied on "inaccurate information" from an "inadequate investigation."
When the lawmen raided the publisher's home they found it occupied by his 98-year-old mother who ordered them to leave the premises - which was captured on a video recording device inside of the home. The elderly lady, who had herself run the newspaper in Marion along with her husband for many years and was still a co-owner of the paper, was supported by a walker as she tried in vain to get the police to leave her home. She died two days later due to what the family believes was stress brought on by the police invasion of he home.
But Eric Meyer, the newspaper's owner, publisher, and editor, was no pushover country bumpkin. He had worked for the Milwaukee Journal for twenty years and had twenty-six years of experience teaching journalism at the University of Illinois. He had a clear understanding of the purpose and power of the First Amendment. Mr. Meyer went to court and brought suit against Marion County.
The police chief was fired and is currently awaiting trial on a charge of interfering with a witness in the case.
This week the Marion County, Kansas, agreed to a $3 million settlement to the newspaper and also issued a formal apology. It was an expensive lesson in the worth and power of a free press, an expense that will ultimately be borne by the county's taxpayers - and not the over-zealous lawmen who trampled the First Amendment.
America wins when the free press prevails!
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