Fallout from the Marion, Kansas Newspaper Raid

In August 2023, local police raided the office of the Marion County Record newspaper and the homes of the reporters, supposedly in search of evidence that reporters had illegally accessed a state database looking for DUI records of a local coffee shop owner. @kedavis asked me for an update in a comment, but I decided to do a longer post instead.

The editor/owner of the newspaper, Eric Meyer, grew up in Marion, and his family has run the Record for decades. Before returning home to run the local paper, he had been editor of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and taught journalism at University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, so he has national connections. Thus, the story went viral within hours.

Proximate Cause. A local restaurateur had been driving without a license for years due to DUI convictions, with the acquiescence of the local police department. She applied for a liquor license for her restaurant but was denied because of her DUIs. The newspaper investigated and learned (from her ex-husband) that the police had been letting her drive illegally. She was buddies with the new police chief, so she went to the chief and told him that the newspaper had illegally hacked into the state database to get her DUI records. The newspaper says that the database is public and that they didn't hack anything. (Yes, it really is that petty.)

But this wasn't just any police chief. He had been a captain on the Kansas City force where her was under investigation for sexual assault and intentionally driving over a dead body in his squad car. When he applied for the vacant Marion chief job, the newspaper discovered all this and reported it privately to the mayor; but he was hired anyway. So the police chief had a grudge against the newspaper.

Immediate Aftermath. When the story blew up, the Kansas Bureau of Investigation stepped in to investigate. They quickly returned the newspaper's and the reporters' property. The judge withdrew the search warrants. The editor's 98-year-old mother and co-owner went into shock from her home being raided, and died the next day. There's a sad but funny video of her standing with a walker in her bathrobe, yelling at the police searching her home. Among other things, she yelled at the police chief, "Does your mother love you?"

A lot more has been revealed of the local alliances involved in the raid. The new police chief and the mayor worked together to organize the raid. One city council member, Ruth Herbel, had allied with the paper as an advocate for good government, but the mayor and three other council members have long been opponents of the paper. About a year before the raid, the newspaper had exposed an effort by the council to illegally amend the city charter to allow the city to incur any amount of debt without a popular vote. The newspaper caught this and forced a municipal referendum on changing the charter, which was voted down. The mayor was publicly very angry about this.

Continuing Fallout. The police chief refused to resign at first, and the mayor refused to fire him. Eventually, with FOIA requests, the newspaper found texts between the chief and the mayor planning the raid, so the chief resigned under pressure.

The restaurateur had to close her coffee shop for lack of business, but her restaurant survived. However, she got a lot of local blowback, and it was great fun to read the comments and her responses on the restaurant Facebook page.

The local judge who issued the warrants has been under an ethics investigation, because in approving the warrants she stated that she had personally spoken to the police chief and that she had reviewed the evidence. She had done neither.

In January 2024, there were local elections. The mayor was stepping down because he was tired of the mess, but his hand-picked successor was elected. A Record reporter somehow got an invitation to the victory celebration of the old and new mayors at the country club. He was very publicly thrown out of the country club, but not without getting photos and video of the incident. Ruth Herbel, the newspaper's only ally on the council, was defeated. So politically the city administration has closed ranks and survived.

The Marion County sheriff, who also participated in the raid, has drawn a serious opponent in the upcoming November elections. Usually local officials run unopposed until they decide to retire, at which point there is a contested election. But the opponent, who cleaned up the local police department of a town in the county, is running on a platform of cleaning up the sheriff's department.

Lawsuits. Two reporters and the office manager have filed suits against the city, the judge, the police chief, and the county sheriff. Just a few days ago, the newspaper itself filed a $10 million federal lawsuit against the city. The city's annual budget is only $8.7 million; although I'm sure the city has insurance, this would still be a huge blow against the city. The newspaper has argued that they are asking for such large damages because local officials everywhere need to be taught a lesson that they cannot do this.

The Bigger Picture. The Marion County and Marion City governments are notoriously poorly run. (I'm not from here and don't have local connections and don't plan to live here long-term, so I can say this objectively.) Most of their decisions are based on alliances and conflicts that go back generations rather than any notion of good government. The paper has been an aggressive (probably too aggressive) advocate for good government. They routinely catch them in violations of Kansas law on local government. They have exposed a number of hires of people with a scandalous or even criminal background. Unlike most local newspaper editors, Eric Meyer has national experience; so he knows the law and investigative techniques. It's important to have a strong advocate for good local government, something that most towns have lost as local newspapers have folded. But his style has made a of lot enemies, needlessly in my view.

The reaction of the general population surprised me. I've not heard one comment supportive of the newspaper - most people express embarrassment that Marion's dirty laundry got aired on a national stage. But they still subscribe to the newspaper because every issue is filled with juicy stories. The raid and its fallout brought generations of conflict and fissures into focus.