Kansas lawmakers want a report on last year's police raid of a newspaper

Source: Associated Press

Kansas lawmakers want a report on last year’s police raid of a newspaper

BY JOHN HANNA
Updated 6:14 PM EST, January 23, 2024

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Dozens of Kansas lawmakers launched an effort Tuesday to direct the state’s attorney general to release information from an investigation into 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.

Thirty-five Democrats and 10 Republicans in the Kansas House introduced a resolution condemning the Aug. 11 raid of the Marion County Record’s offices, the home of its publisher and the home of a city council member in Marion in central Kansas. The resolution would direct Attorney General Kris Kobach to provide a report on whether the investigation found that people’s civil rights were violated.

The raid put Marion, a town of about 1,900 residents about 150 miles (241 kilometers) southwest of Kansas City, at the center of a national debate over press freedom. It also focused an intense spotlight on the police chief who led the raid because the paper had been looking into his past.

The 98-year-old mother of Publisher Eric Meyer died the day after the raid, something he attributed to the stress it caused, and within days the local prosecutor declared there wasn’t enough evidence to support the raid. Legal experts said it likely violated state or federal law, and then-Marion Police Chief Gideon Cody resigned in early October.

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Read more: https://apnews.com/article/kansas-newspaper-raid-investigation-legislature-9af42d3ca446758551133c1273114304