Current Events > Remember that report about a small town sheriff raiding a local newspaper?

(+) Yeah! (+)

Refresher: A sheriff in Kansas raided a local newspaper's office and its editor's home because they were investigating him and his friend, a local restauranteur. The warrant was obtained on false pretense and the raids carried out to punish and intimidate the reporters. The editor's elderly mother, the paper's co-owner, died of a heart attack the day after the raid. The sheriff tampered with witnesses and destroyed evidence in an attempt to cover his ass after the story blew up nationally.

https://apnews.com/article/kansas-newspaper-raid-press-freedom-c18f46a215908198335ca6f608c3360b

A rural Kansas county has agreed to pay a little more than $3 million and apologize over a law enforcement raid on a small-town weekly newspaper in August 2023 that sparked an outcry over press freedom.

Marion County sheriffs officers were involved in the raid on the Marion County Record and helped draft search warrants used by Marion city police to enter the newspapers offices, the publishers home and the home of a local city council member.

They intentionally wanted to harass us for reporting the news, and youre not supposed to do that in a democracy, the editor and publisher, Eric Meyer, said Tuesday. He added he hoped the payment was large enough to discourage similar actions against other news organizations in the future.

The raid prompted five federal lawsuits against the county, the city of Marion and local officials. Meyers 98-year-old mother Joan, the papers co-owner, died of a heart attack the next day, something he blames on the stress of the raid.

During the raid, authorities seized cellphones and computers from the newsroom and rifled through reporters desks. Search warrants linked the raid to a dispute between a local restaurant owner and the newspaper, which had obtained a copy of her driving record while reporting on her request for a city liquor license. The raid also came after the newspaper had dug into the background of the police chief at the time who led the raid.

So now the tax payers are on the hook for $3 million to settle lawsuits stemming from police misconduct. I suspect the standard for hiring law enforcement officers would be a lot higher if these settlements were paid out of police pensions. The good news is the sheriff is facing felony charges for obstruction of justice.