Kansas county agrees to pay $3 million over law enforcement raid on a small-town newspaper
FILE - A stack of the Marion County Record sits in the back of the newspaper's building, awaiting unbundling, sorting and distribution, Aug. 16, 2023, in Marion, Kan. Dozens of Kansas lawmakers launched an effort Tuesday, Jan. 23, 2024 to direct the state's attorney general to release information from an investigation of a police raid last year on a weekly newspaper, but it wasn't clear that their measure would get a hearing in the Republican-controlled Legislature. (AP Photo/John Hanna, File)
By JOHN D. HANNA and HEATHER HOLLINGSWORTH Associated Press
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — 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, the paper’s editor said Tuesday.
Marion County was among multiple defendants in five federal lawsuits filed by the company that publishes the Marion County Record, its publisher, the estate of his late mother Joan Meyer, the paper’s co-owner, employees of the paper and a former Marion City Council member whose home also was raided.
Eric Meyer, the paper’s editor and publisher, told The Associated Press he is hoping the size of the payment is large enough to discourage similar actions against news organizations in the future.
“The goal isn’t to get the money. The money is symbolic,” Meyer said. “The press has basically been under assault.”
Sheriff Jeff Soyez issued an apology that mentioned the publisher and his late mother Joan Meyer by name, along with former council member Ruth Herbel and her husband.
“The Sheriff’s Office wishes to express its sincere regrets to Eric and Joan Meyer and Ruth and Ronald Herbel for its participation in the drafting and execution of the Marion County Police Department’s search warrants on their homes and the Marion County Record,” the sheriff’s statement said.
The Marion County Commission approved the agreement Monday after discussing it in private for 15 minutes.
The raid triggered a national debate about press freedom focused on Marion, a town of about 1,900 people set among rolling prairie hills some 150 miles (240 kilometers) southwest of Kansas City, Missouri. Also, Meyer’s mother, who co-owned the newspaper and lived with him, died the day after the raid of a heart attack, which he blamed on the stress of the raid.
A search warrant tied the raid — which was led by Marion’s police chief — to a dispute between the newspaper and a local restaurant owner who had accused the Marion County Record of invading her privacy and illegally accessing information about her and her driving record. Meyer has said believed the newspaper’s aggressive coverage of local politics and issues played a role and that his newsroom had been examining the police chief’s past work history.
