Police defended the raids of the Marion County Record office and the home of the newspaper's 98-year-old co-owner, insisting that the co-owner was a suspect in the investigation.
Marion Police Chief Gideon Cody on Saturday defended the raid and said that once all the information is available, “the judicial system that is being questioned will be vindicated.”
Cody also allegedly forcibly grabbed reporter Deb Gruver’s cellphone, injuring a finger that had previously been dislocated.
The search warrant, posted online by the Kansas Reflector, indicates police were investigating identity theft and unlawful acts concerning computers.
The raid appears to have violated federal law and the First Amendment, according to Seth Stern, advocacy director of Freedom of the Press Foundation.
“This looks like the latest example of American law enforcement officers treating the press in a manner previously associated with authoritarian regimes,” Stern said Friday.
“Journalists rely on confidential sources to report on matters of vital public concern,” Shannon Jankowski, PEN America’s journalism and disinformation program director, said in a statement.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Marion Police Chief Gideon Cody on Saturday defended the raid and said that once all the information is available, “the judicial system that is being questioned will be vindicated.”
Cody also allegedly forcibly grabbed reporter Deb Gruver’s cellphone, injuring a finger that had previously been dislocated.
The search warrant, posted online by the Kansas Reflector, indicates police were investigating identity theft and unlawful acts concerning computers.
The raid appears to have violated federal law and the First Amendment, according to Seth Stern, advocacy director of Freedom of the Press Foundation.
“This looks like the latest example of American law enforcement officers treating the press in a manner previously associated with authoritarian regimes,” Stern said Friday.
“Journalists rely on confidential sources to report on matters of vital public concern,” Shannon Jankowski, PEN America’s journalism and disinformation program director, said in a statement.
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