On August 11, 2023, every police officer in Marion, Kansas, took part in an illegal raid of the office of the Marion County Record. The police also raided the home of Joan Meyer, the 98-year-old mother of the paper's publisher, Eric Meyer. She died the day after the raid. Her son said the stress of the raid caused her death.
As The New York Times reported, "It is extremely rare for law enforcement authorities in the United States to search and seize the tools to produce journalism."
According to Slate, "After several days of nationwide furor and the launch of a state investigation, the county attorney withdrew the search warrant and declared he would return the paper's materials."
In an interview, Eric Meyer told Slate that the raid is "a confluence of personal animus from the mayor, a personal attempt to intimidate us from the police chief, and basic incompetence from the judge and the county attorney."
The video below is security camera footage of police searching Joan Meyer's home. She is clearly upset about the intrusion and repeatedly asks the police to leave.
From the YouTube description:
This is the last of 82 videos made available Aug. 21 of a police raid Aug. 11 on the home of 98-year-old Marion County Record co-owner Joan Meyer, who still contributed to the paper as a weekly columnist. It was recorded at 12:28 p.m., an hour and a half after officers first entered her home, and ends at the point at which police disconnected her network. It begins with her asking her Alexa smart speaker to call her son, Eric Meyer, whose phone already had been seized and can be heard ringing in police custody.
