Police Raided a Newspaper After Reporters Began Investigating the Alleged Misconduct of a Local Business Owner and Police Chief

On Saturday, a co-owner of a newspaper passed away at her home from stress due to the circumstances, according to the publication.

According to a story from the Kansas Reflector, police in Kansas searched a local newspaper on Friday after one of its reporters received a tip about private information relating to a local business owner. (Photo: Yahoo News)

98-year-old Joan Meyer passed away by stress brought on by the events

According to a story from the Kansas Reflector, police in Kansas searched a local newspaper on Friday after one of its reporters received a tip about private information relating to a local business owner.

According to the publication, 98-year-old Joan Meyer, who was a co-owner, passed away on Saturday at her home as a result of stress brought on by the events.

The 98-year-old newspaper co-owner Joan Meyer, who was otherwise in good health for her age, collapsed Saturday afternoon and passed away at home, according to the newspaper’s website. She had been under excessive stress and had been overcome by hours of shock and grief following illegal police raids on her home and the Marion County Record newspaper office on Friday. She had not been able to eat since Friday, when police arrived at her house with a search warrant. She also had trouble falling asleep on Friday night.

The Marion County Record, a family-owned weekly newspaper that was first published in 1869 and focuses on the central Kansas county of less than 12,000 people, was visited by the Marion Police Department and the city’s two sheriff’s deputies on Friday morning.

According to Eric Meyer, owner and publisher, they grabbed everything we had, as reported in the Reflector.

Meyer’s home was also searched, and his computers as well as numerous papers and records were taken. The electronics would be transferred to a lab for inspection, the police informed Meyer.

Meyer warned the Reflector that it would be difficult for us to even confront problems. a chilling impact on sources of knowledge.

According to the Marion County Record’s own account of the raid, when police searched Meyer’s home, they also took his mother’s Alexa smart speaker, which she used to stream TV shows and request assistance.

Police chief Gideon Cody, when questioned by The Messenger, declined to provide a specific justification for the raid or reveal what investigation the raid was associated with. Instead, he referred to the Federal Privacy Protection Act, emphasizing that the Act can be used when there is cause to suspect a journalist is participating in the underlying wrongdoing.

The Marion County Record’s reporters received a tip about sensitive information regarding restaurant owner Kari Newell, which led to the raid.

The Peabody Gazette-Bulletin, a Marion County Record sister publication, stated last week that Newell had kicked the publication’s staff out of a meeting with American officials. Representative Jake LaTurner, who stands for Kansas’s second congressional district. The Messenger contacted LaTurner for comment, but she did not respond right away.

Meyer stated he had not yet heard from LaTurner’s office in an interview with Marisa Kabas for her stack, The Handbasket.

According to a secret source who spoke to the Marion County Record, Newell once had a DUI but kept driving even after losing his license. According to Meyer, who was quoted by the Reflector, the publication never published the material out of fear that they were being set up.

Meyer instead contacted the police and informed them of his discovery. Newell protested after the police informed her, erroneously alleging that the Marion County Record had leaked private information.

According to The Reflector, Newell acknowledged receiving a DUI and claimed she did so “foolishly” in 2008. Additionally, she claimed that she drove while ineligible for a license “out of necessity.”

The Reflector claims that she made this confession under a different name on her personal Facebook account.

The same Facebook account was used by Newell to criticize journalists.

According to The Reflector, she claimed that journalists today are like today’s dishonest politicians, slanting the truth to suit their own objectives and spewing forth murky half-truths. Rarely do we receive information that isn’t enticed by false implication.

Meyer told the Reflector that he believed the raid’s message to be: “Mind your own business or we’re going to step on you.”

According to Meyer, who spoke with The Handbasket, the raid took place just a few weeks after the Marion County Record started looking into charges of misbehavior made by Gideon Cody, the newly appointed chief of the Marion Police Department.

Meyer said in The Handbasket that a Marion County Record reporter has been looking into claims made by a number of Cody’s former employees, who purportedly revealed that he was rumored to have been demoted at his previous position due to allegations of sexual misbehavior.

Cody refused to comment on the raid when The Messenger contacted him for a response, citing an ongoing criminal investigation.

Additionally, he avoided addressing the claims Meyer claimed his publication had been looking into. He also declined to respond to The Messenger’s direct query about whether the claims had anything to do with the reason the raid took place.

In contrast, Cody responded to The Messenger by citing the Privacy Protection Act of 1980 and asserting that, in general, journalists are shielded from police searches on newsrooms.

He acknowledged that, in the majority of situations, police must utilize subpoenas rather than search warrants in order to search a journalist’s office, unless the journalist is a suspect in the crime being investigated.

According to Cody, one situation when it would be permissible to conduct a newsroom raid is when there is cause to suspect the journalist is complicit in the underlying violation.

Cody didn’t say if he thought Meyer or the newsroom had done anything improper.

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Data for Cody’s inquiry were on the laptops that Marion police had seized

In a report from the The Messenger News, according to him, the Marion Kansas Police Department considers it to be the primary responsibility of the police to protect the health, safety, and welfare of all members of the public. In order to safeguard the values of justice, equal protection, and the rule of law for everyone in the community, this dedication must remain unwavering and objective, undisturbed by political or media pressures.

The data for Cody’s inquiry were on the laptops that Marion police had seized, according to Meyer, who spoke with The Handbasket.

He continued by saying he had no immediate plans to write anything about Cody.

Although it is true that The Handbasket was looking into Meyer and had opted not to publish any information at this time, Meyer had stated that he wouldn’t feel comfortable publishing specific claims. They don’t make any accusations against him, but we looked into some.

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