Small-town Kansas paper was probing ‘Gestapo’ police chief over sex claims before he raided it
By Joshua Rhett Miller
August 14, 2023 5:17pm
The police chief whose “Gestapo”-style raid on a small town newspaper has become the focus of national outrage was being investigated by its reporters over claims of alleged sexual misconduct.
Gideon Cody and every officer in the Marion Police Department stormed into the Marion County Record’s offices Friday with a search warrant where they seized computers and servers.
They also raided the home of the editor and publisher, Eric Meyer, and his 98-year-old mother Joan Meyer, the paper’s co-owner.
She died the following day of “shock and grief,” Meyer said, stressed and unable to sleep when police seized her computer and smart speaker, as well as her son’s cellphone and even his router.
He had answered the door thinking it was her Meals on Wheels delivery.
The Marion County Record, published weekly, has served the rural communities of Marion County (pop. 11,712) since 1869, and until now had never been at the center of a national battle over freedom of the press.
But as First Amendment advocates spoke out against the raid, it emerged the newspaper had been investigating Cody, 54, after receiving an “outpouring of calls” claiming he had retired from his last police post to avoid demotion over sexual misconduct allegations.
more
https://nypost.com/2023/08/14/kansas-paper-was-probing-gestapo-police-chief-over-sex-claims/
