Kansas reporter information federal lawsuit in opposition to police chief who raided newspaper workplace

One of the reporters who works on the small Kansas newspaper that was raided by authorities earlier this month filed a federal lawsuit in opposition to the police chief Wednesday.

Deb Gruver believes Marion Police Chief Gideon Cody violated her constitutional rights when he abruptly snatched her private cellphone out of her palms throughout a search the place officers additionally seized computer systems from the Marion County Record’s workplace, in accordance with the lawsuit. That Aug. 11 search and two others carried out on the houses of the newspaper’s writer and a City Council member have thrust the city into the middle of a debate over the press protections within the First Amendment.

Cody didn’t instantly reply to an electronic mail or textual content message from The Associated Press on Wednesday looking for remark. He has mentioned little publicly because the raids. In court docket paperwork he filed to get the search warrants, he argued that he had possible trigger to imagine the newspaper and City Council member Ruth Herbel, whose dwelling was additionally raided, had violated state legal guidelines in opposition to identification theft or laptop crimes.

But the newspaper’s writer, Eric Meyer, has mentioned he believes the identification theft allegations offered a handy excuse for the search, and the police chief was actually upset about Gruver’s investigation into his background with the Kansas City, Missouri, Police Department earlier than he was employed in Marion earlier this 12 months. Meyer has mentioned he plans to file his personal lawsuit.

Gruver mentioned in an announcement that by submitting her lawsuit “I’m standing up for journalists across the country.”

“It is our constitutional right to do this job without fear of harassment or retribution, and our constitutional rights are always worth fighting for,” Gruver mentioned.