Almost one 12 months after the authorities raided The Marion County Record, a Kansas weekly newspaper, a former reporter has reached a $235,000 settlement as a part of a lawsuit she filed over the search, which set off a nationwide dialogue about press freedoms.
The settlement, dated June 25, introduced an finish to a lawsuit filed by the previous reporter, Deb Gruver, towards Gideon Cody, who resigned because the Marion metropolis police chief in October within the face of mounting strain.
Ms. Gruver’s lawsuit claimed that Mr. Cody had induced damage to her hand whereas forcibly acquiring her private cellphone in the course of the raid. Body-camera footage corroborated Ms. Gruver’s account, in line with Eric Meyer, the newspaper’s writer.
Mr. Meyer mentioned on Saturday that body-camera audio recorded Mr. Cody “saying that it simply made his day.”
Ms. Gruver, who left the newspaper final fall, mentioned in a letter to the editor that she “now not needed to work in a city the place the vast majority of ‘leaders’ clearly don’t respect the Fourth Estate or the U.S. Constitution,” The Record reported.
On Aug. 11, 2023, native police and county sheriff’s deputies raided the workplace of The Record and the houses of a councilwoman and Mr. Meyer. The raid on the newsroom sparked outrage and a nationwide debate over First Amendment rights.
A search warrant was issued about one hour earlier than the raid through which officers searched the newsroom and opened drawers and eliminated computer systems, cellphones and different supplies from The Record’s workplace. Seven legislation enforcement officers spent greater than two hours in Mr. Meyer’s residence, the place his mom was on the time, he mentioned.
The authorities mentioned the search was a part of an investigation into how a doc, which contained details about a neighborhood restaurant proprietor’s steps to revive her driver’s license, had been obtained by the newspaper. The authorities mentioned that the acquisition might have constituted id theft and different crimes.
No article containing the federal government report had been printed, and The Record mentioned that it had obtained the doc from a confidential supply.
Less than per week after the raid, Marion County’s high prosecutor, Joel Ensey, ordered officers to return the seized units as a result of there was inadequate proof to justify the searches.
Two days after the searches, Joan Meyer, the 98-year-old mom of the writer and the co-owner of the paper, died, partly due to the misery attributable to the raid on her dwelling, Mr. Meyer mentioned.
The raid additionally got here days after The Record had questioned Mr. Cody about his departure from the Kansas City Police Department, following accusations that he had made sexist and insulting feedback.
Ms. Gruver “was the reporter who had obtained preliminary data on the police chief that we didn’t publish on the time,” Mr. Meyer mentioned. “The materials for that was in her desk, and so they searched her desk in the course of the raid.”
Another a part of her lawsuit towards the county sheriff, Jeff Soyez, and Mr. Ensey stays pending. Lawsuits filed by 4 different staff of the newspaper additionally stay pending.
The metropolis’s insurance coverage provider can pay the settlement in Ms. Gruver’s case. City officers and Mr. Cody couldn’t instantly be reached for touch upon Saturday.
One of the lawsuits, filed by Mr. Meyer, is on behalf of the newspaper’s mum or dad firm and the property of Ms. Meyer. The lawsuits accuse native officers of making an attempt to silence the paper and say that the raids contributed to Ms. Meyer’s loss of life.
“One of the issues that we’ve seen out of that is that the individuals who have responded to us have come from throughout the political spectrum,” Mr. Meyer mentioned. “There aren’t too many issues on this world proper now that deliver Democrats and Republicans collectively.”
