This is from the LaTurner meet-and-greet (ironically, from the Marion KS PD social media).
LaTurner should weigh in here. Note he is an arm's reach away from LEO -- is that the guy who tossed out the reporter?
Posted on 08/12/2023 10:06:31 AM PDT by algore
MARION — In an unprecedented raid Friday, local law enforcement seized computers, cellphones and reporting materials from the Marion County Record office, the newspaper’s reporters, and the publisher’s home.
Eric Meyer, owner and publisher of the newspaper, said police were motivated by a confidential source who leaked sensitive documents to the newspaper, and the message was clear: “Mind your own business or we’re going to step on you.”
The city’s entire five-officer police force and two sheriff’s deputies took “everything we have,” Meyer said, and it wasn’t clear how the newspaper staff would take the weekly publication to press Tuesday night.
The raid followed news stories about a restaurant owner who kicked reporters out of a meeting last week with U.S. Rep. Jake LaTurner, and revelations about the restaurant owner’s lack of a driver’s license and conviction for drunken driving.
Meyer said he had never heard of police raiding a newspaper office during his 20 years at the Milwaukee Journal or 26 years teaching journalism at the University of Illinois.
“It’s going to have a chilling effect on us even tackling issues,” Meyer said, as well as “a chilling effect on people giving us information.”
The search warrant, signed by Marion County District Court Magistrate Judge Laura Viar, appears to violate federal law that provides protections against searching and seizing materials from journalists. The law requires law enforcement to subpoena materials instead. Viar didn’t respond to a request to comment for this story or explain why she would authorize a potentially illegal raid.
Emily Bradbury, executive director of the Kansas Press Association, said the police raid is unprecedented in Kansas.
“An attack on a newspaper office through an illegal search is not just an infringement on the rights of journalists but an assault on the very foundation of democracy and the public’s right to know,” Bradbury said. “This cannot be allowed to stand.”
Meyer reported last week that Marion restaurant owner Kari Newell had kicked newspaper staff out of a public forum with LaTurner, whose staff was apologetic. Newell responded to Meyer’s reporting with hostile comments on her personal Facebook page.
A confidential source contacted the newspaper, Meyer said, and provided evidence that Newell had been convicted of drunken driving and continued to use her vehicle without a driver’s license. The criminal record could jeopardize her efforts to obtain a liquor license for her catering business.
A reporter with the Marion Record used a state website to verify the information provided by the source. But Meyer suspected the source was relaying information from Newell’s husband, who had filed for divorce. Meyer decided not to publish a story about the information, and he alerted police to the situation.
Police notified Newell, who then complained at a city council meeting that the newspaper had illegally obtained and disseminated sensitive documents, which isn’t true. Her public comments prompted the newspaper to set the record straight in a story published Thursday.
Sometime before 11 a.m. Friday, officers showed up simultaneously at Meyer’s home and the newspaper office. They presented a search warrant that alleges identity theft and unlawful use of a computer.
The search warrant identifies two pages worth of items that law enforcement officers were allowed to seize, including computer software and hardware, digital communications, cellular networks, servers and hard drives, items with passwords, utility records, and all documents and records pertaining to Newell.
The warrant specifically targeted ownership of computers capable of being used to “participate in the identity theft of Kari Newell.”
Officers injured a reporter’s finger by grabbing her cellphone out of her hand, Meyer said. Officers at his home took photos of his bank account information.
He said officers told him the computers, cellphones and other devices would be sent to a lab.
“I don’t know when they’ll get it back to us,” Meyer said. “They won’t tell us.”
The seized computers, server and backup hard drive include advertisements and legal notices that were supposed to appear in the next edition of the newspaper.
“I don’t know what we’re going to do,” he said. “We will publish something.”
😂
It look like Antifa got to the jury, hell even one of the lawyers claimed to be Antifa! Judge should have stopped the trial.
I disagree. The Press gave away their freedom a long time ago, in order to be part of the Demoncrat/Progressive left. They have been printing lies in synch with the whole left wing for at least 30 years. This is just calling in a few outliers.
Talk about tone-deaf. This has even made TMZ. The whole nation gonna throw down on this stupid Kansas bitch.
And who is the Attorney General of Kansas, you may ask? KRIS KOBACH!
Pop the freaking popcorn!
https://www.justice.gov/crt/deprivation-rights-under-color-law
TITLE 18, U.S.C., SECTION 242
Whoever, under color of any law, statute, ordinance, regulation, or custom, willfully subjects any person in any State, Territory, Commonwealth, Possession, or District to the deprivation of any rights, privileges, or immunities secured or protected by the Constitution or laws of the United States, ... shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than one year, or both; and if bodily injury results from the acts committed in violation of this section or if such acts include the use, attempted use, or threatened use of a dangerous weapon, explosives, or fire, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both; and if death results from the acts committed in violation of this section or if such acts include kidnapping or an attempt to kidnap, aggravated sexual abuse, or an attempt to commit aggravated sexual abuse, or an attempt to kill, shall be fined under this title, or imprisoned for any term of years or for life, or both, or may be sentenced to death.
Note the words on the tail end of the statute.
This is from the LaTurner meet-and-greet (ironically, from the Marion KS PD social media).
LaTurner should weigh in here. Note he is an arm's reach away from LEO -- is that the guy who tossed out the reporter?
Sounds like a Death Penalty offense to me, EVERY LAST PERSON INVOLVED including the Clerk that stamped the order.
If the police had dragged the reporters off in an improper arrest, I could see a Republican attorney classifying that as a “kidnapping”.
We’re not in Kansas any more.
Indianapolis takes up most of the room in it.
Tree of Liberty
The second amendment is there in case the government doesn’t follow the first.
Meyer stated that he hid his 13 week old puppy under a cardboard box so she wouldn’t be shot. So there was a semi-happy outcome of the Brown Shirt raid.
I wonder how many boot lickers on here will support that.
Shirley... 🤔
All of them.
From the article:
“two sheriff’s deputies took “everything we have,”
Just noted for all “the sheriffs will save us!” people.
Which is why, at first, I thought the article was referencing a paper here in Indiana. Still, this is chilling.
Wonder if they’ll leak PV and James O’Keefe’s confidential info to the NY Slimes, like the vaunted fbi did?
1. The victim is a cop or family member
2. Publicity
3. Possibility of getting some poontang
4. Possibility of $ (fines or forfeitures)
5. Possibility of kicking someone’s butt
6. The victim is famous
7. Politics
8. The cop has a grudge and can pin a crime on that person.
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