Police Chief Suspended After Controversial Kansas Newspaper Raid
Marion Mayor Dave Mayfield confirmed on Saturday that he had suspended Police Chief Gideon Cody, who led a highly criticized raid of a small Kansas newspaper. This decision came after mounting criticism of the August 11 searches of the Marion County Record’s office, as well as the homes of its publisher and a City Council member. The incident has ignited a nationwide debate about press protections guaranteed by the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.
The suspension marks a change of course for Mayor Mayfield, who initially stated he would wait for results from a state police investigation before taking action. Vice-Mayor Ruth Herbel, whose home was also searched during the raid, expressed support for Cody’s suspension, believing it to be “the best thing that can happen to Marion right now” as the town of approximately 1,900 residents grapples with the public scrutiny.
Cody had remained largely silent since the controversial searches, aside from posting a defense of the actions on the police department’s Facebook page. In court documents seeking search warrants, he argued that he had probable cause to believe the newspaper and Herbel had violated state laws related to identity theft or computer crimes.
The controversy unfolded when a local restaurant owner accused the newspaper of illegally accessing her information. However, a spokesperson for the agency maintaining these records indicated that the online search conducted by a reporter was likely legal, even though the reporter required personal information provided by a tipster to access the restaurant owner’s driving record.
The newspaper’s publisher, Eric Meyer, contended that the identity theft allegations merely served as a pretext for the search, following his reporters’ investigation into Cody’s background after his summer appointment as police chief.
Legal experts have raised concerns that the raid on the newspaper may have violated federal privacy laws or state statutes that protect journalists from having to disclose sources or surrender unpublished material to law enforcement.
Video footage of the raid on Eric Meyer’s home depicted the distress experienced by his 98-year-old mother as officers searched through their possessions. Meyer believes that this stress may have contributed to his mother’s death a day later. In response, another reporter has filed a federal lawsuit against Police Chief Gideon Cody over the raid.