Marion newspaper raid documentary will make Kansas debut at Lawrence’s Liberty Hall
Audiences will have a chance to catch the Kansas debut of a new documentary about the 2023 raid of The Marion County Record.
“Seized” will be shown at the Free State Festival in Lawrence, Kansas on June 28 at 2:30 p.m. at Liberty Hall, 644 Massachusetts St.
The $12 tickets are available online, and include a Q&A with filmmakers and documentary subject.
The documentary was first screened at the 2026 Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah.
“Seized” covers the fierce debate about the abuse of power, journalistic ethics, local journalism and the United States Constitution, according to its Sundance description.
In 2024, The Kansas City Star and The Wichita Eagle won the Scripps Howard Journalism Award for Distinguished Service to the First Amendment for their combined coverage of the raid and its aftermath.
‘Seized,’ a documentary about the Marion raid
Overland Park-based Director Sharon Liese and her team spent two years uncovering the dynamics in Marion, Kansas, a small town 2 1/2 hours west of Kansas City, after the Marion Police Department raided the Marion County Record and its owner’s home.
In August 2023, then-police chief Gideon Cody illegally searched the paper’s newsroom and the home of editor and publisher Eric Meyer. His mother, 98-year-old Joan Meyer, was also searched, and she died shortly after the raid.
Cody, a former Kansas City police captain hired in Marion in 2023, raided the properties as part of an investigation into alleged identity theft by a Marion County Record reporter, but the basis for the searches quickly fell apart. A local prosecutor withdrew the search warrants and Cody resigned weeks after the raid. Cody now faces one felony charge of interfering with the judicial process.
Liese told The Star that the documentary started out as a story about abuse of power and the First and Fourth Amendments. However, once she began talking to residents, it became more of a story about how a small town and its newspaper relates to one another.
“The story’s a microcosm of what’s going on in the country, and not just from a political sense,” Liese said. “It’s how we relate to each other and how we live in community together.”
Kansas premiere of “Seized”
- June 28 at 2:30 p.m.
- Liberty Hall, 644 Massachusetts St., Lawrence, Kansas
- $12 tickets available online
