“Marion Record Raid”

A team of 15 reporters embarked on a meticulous investigation looking into what happened before, during and after a 2023 police chief-ordered raid on the offices of the Marion Record, a newspaper in small town Marion, Kansas.

The raid sparked First Amendment concerns across the country. Reporters from both the Kansas City Star and the Wichita Eagle united on the story to examine the background of police and government officials involved in the incident. The two papers provided a call to action for journalists in solidarity against an abuse of power.

The raid was just one piece in a larger and occasionally convoluted history. As the Star team reported, the Marion Record investigated the background of Marion’s new police chief, Gideon Cody. The Record found Cody was dismissed from his previous role with the Kansas City Police Department amid allegations of sexual harassment of a colleague. The Record did not publish these findings because it could not confirm the details, but the paper did inform city officials. Unrelated, the Record team had also investigated a social media tip about a local restaurant owner’s DUI. The pursuit of the origin of this tip was given as the official reason for the raid.

When Cody executed the search warrant against the Record, his team seized servers with information related to the investigation into his past. The Star and Eagle procured an interview with the local restaurant owner, whose DUI arrests the Record had confirmed, though once again, the paper had not actually published this information. Police raided not only the newspaper offices, but also the home of a city council member and the Record’s owner’s mother’s home. She died the day after the raid.

The reporters traced the steps that led up to the raid, including the signing of a search warrant by a local magistrate judge. The team found that the judge had her own troubled history, with two DUI arrests that might not have been disclosed upon her judicial appointment. The reporters unveiled the lax vetting policies in police departments across the state, including in Marion. In addition to the First Amendment, the reporting raised concerns about potential violations of the Fourth Amendment, which protects people from unreasonable searches and seizures by the government. The reporters highlighted just how often Kansans across the state are experiencing violations of the Fourth Amendment.

Article by: Leyla Shokoohe