Video shows stressful raid of 98-year-old Marion County Record co-owner’s house

The Marion County Record released video Monday of the police raid on 98-year-old Joan Meyer’s house that her son, Eric Meyer, said contributed to her sudden cardiac arrest and death the next day.

The video captures the stress Joan Meyer, a retired journalist who her son has said was in good health before the raid, faced during her final 24 hours as police filled her living room, rifled through her personal belongings and attempted to block her from moving within her own house.

It also reportedly shows her attempting to call her son through her Alexa smart speaker. His cellphone had already been seized by police at The Record’s newsroom, The Record reported.

The video shows the veteran newswoman didn’t take kindly to what she later described as “Hitler tactics.” She defiantly told officers to leave her house and demanded that they stop going through her personal items. She told one officer to stand outside.

“[Does] your mother love you?” she asked one officer. “Do you love your mother? You’re an asshole, police chief. You’re the chief? Oh, God, get out of my house.”

The officer she addressed does not appear to be Chief Gideon Cody, who sought a warrant that has been described as illegal by advocates of freedom of the press and legal experts.

The video released by The Record is 1 minute and 33 seconds in length. It was published on YouTube and is titled “Search of 98-year-old newspaper co-owner Joan Meyer’s house that contributed to her death.”

An accompanying online story titled “Chilling video shows raid on 98-year-old newspaper co-owner’s home” says the clip is one of 82 captured on Meyer’s security cameras.

“The video . . . starts one and a half hours into police presence, which she found intolerable, at her home and ends at the point when police pulled the plug on her Internet connection,” The Record reported.

Marion police and sheriff’s deputies executed search warrants on two private residences and the Marion County Record on Aug. 11, seizing computers, cellphones and other records allegedly tied to an investigation into “identity theft” and “computer crimes” against Marion restaurant owner Kari Newell, who was seeking a liquor license.

At an Aug. 7 Marion City Council meeting, Newell publicly accused The Record and Marion Council member Ruth Herbel of disseminating her “private and personal information that was illegally obtained by a local reporter.”

The Record had apparently looked up Newell’s driving license status on a public website to confirm allegations and documentation of Newell’s DUI history that was provided by a confidential source. Meyer ultimately decided not to publish the story and alerted police that the records provided by the source may have been unlawfully obtained.

The Marion County attorney later rescinded the search warrant and returned the property to the newspaper, saying police lacked sufficient evidence to justify the warrant. The Kansas Bureau of Investigation took over the case last week. No charges have been announced.

Magistrate Judge Laura Viar, Marion Police Chief Gideon Cody and Marion County Attorney Joel Ensey have come under intense scrutiny for their handling of the situation.

Ensey’s brother owns the Elgin Hotel in Marion and his sister in-law holds the liquor license that Newell has been operating under, The Wichita Eagle and Kansas City Star have reported. The Eagle reported Viar has a history of DUI arrests, and The Star reported that Cody left the Kansas City Police Department under a cloud of suspicion, facing possible discipline and demotion tied to insulting and sexist comments he allegedly made to a female officer.

Joan and Eric Meyer were co-owners of The Record and lived together at the time of the raid. The younger Meyer is also publisher and editor of the small weekly paper about 60 miles north of Wichita.

At one point in the video clip released by The Record, an officer asks Meyer, “How many computers do you have in the house, ma’am?”

“I’m not going to tell you,” she said.

When Meyer complained that the officers were going through her personal papers, a Marion County sheriff’s deputy corrected her.

“Those aren’t papers,” he said. “They’re electronic devices, which is what the judge said that we’re supposed to take.”

This story was originally published August 21, 2023 at 2:24 PM with the headline "Video shows stressful raid of 98-year-old Marion County Record co-owner’s house."