Police chief who led a raid of a small newspaper has been suspended

The police chief who led a highly criticized raid of a small Kansas newspaper has been suspended, the mayor confirmed to The Associated Press on Saturday.

Marion Mayor Dave Mayfield in a text said he suspended Chief Gideon Cody on Thursday. He declined to discuss his decision further and did not say whether Cody still was being paid.

Voice messages and emails from the AP seeking comment from Cody's lawyers were not immediately returned Saturday.

The Aug. 11 searches of the Marion County Record's Office and the homes of its publisher and a City Councilmember have been sharply criticized, putting Marion at the center of a debate over the press protections offered by the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

Cody's suspension is a reversal for the mayor, who previously said he would wait for results from a state police investigation before taking action.

Vice Mayor Ruth Herbel, whose home was also raided Aug. 11, praised Cody's suspension as “the best thing that can happen to Marion right now” as the central Kansas town of about 1,900 people struggles to move forward under the national spotlight.

“We can't duck our heads until it goes away because it's not going to go away until we do something about it,” Herbel said.

Cody has said little publicly since the raids other than posting a defense of them on the Police Department's Facebook page. In court documents he filed to get the search warrants, he argued that he had probable cause to believe the newspaper and Herbel, whose home also was raided, had violated state laws against identity theft or computer crimes.