Mayor suspends police chief who led raid on Kansas paper

The police chief who led the August raid of a newspaper and its publisher’s home in a small Kansas town was suspended Thursday, the mayor confirmed Sunday in an email.

During the raid in Marion, Kan., officials seized a computer that held details about the Marion County Record’s investigation into Police Chief Gideon Cody, editor Eric Meyer said in a recent interview with independent journalist Marisa Kabas.

The raid set off a storm of questions from news organizations and their advocates, who viewed it as a major threat to press freedom. Tensions only grew as the Record and other news organizations continued to report on the conflict between Cody and the newspaper, which had been brewing for months before he led the Aug. 11 raid. Marion Mayor David Mayfield, who faced calls to suspend Cody, said he would not intervene until a state probe was complete, the Record reported.

But late last week, he suspended Cody even though the Kansas Bureau of Investigation’s inquiry into the raid is ongoing, a spokesperson for the agency confirmed Sunday.

Mayfield declined to comment further on the decision, writing it was a personnel matter. Cody and his attorneys did not immediately respond to requests for comment Sunday evening.

Ruth Herbel, a member of the Marion City Council whose home was also raided, told The Associated Press that Cody’s suspension was “the best thing that can happen to Marion right now.”

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

In April, Deb Gruver, a journalist for the Record, had been reporting on Cody and his time at the Kansas City, Mo., Police Department, where he was a captain before resigning that month and taking the chief position in Marion in June. Gruver started her investigation after receiving tips Cody had been facing potential demotion in Kansas City, The

Washington Post previously reported. The raid followed allegations a local restaurant owner, Kari Newell, made about the newspaper. Newell, who was seeking a liquor license, alleged during an August town meeting the Record illegally obtained information about a previous drunken driving conviction — which would jeopardize her application under Kansas law. In an early August article about Newell’s claims, the Record said someone had sent the information through social media, and the newsroom ultimately decided not to publish it.

A judge issued warrants to search the Record’s office and the homes of Meyer, Herbel — who the Record said had independently received the information about Newell — and another person who had allegedly shared the information. Cody led the raid, which involved the town’s five-person police force. During the search of Meyer’s home, his mother, Joan, yelled at officers to leave as they inspected the house, video showed.

Joan Meyer died of a heart attack one day later, the Kansas City Star reported. The raid had created stress and shock, according to the Record. Her death intensified an already fraught clash between the paper and law enforcement.