Eric Meyer, publisher of the Marion County Record, talks about the raid on his business and home on Friday.

MARION, Kan. — The best efforts by some aside, it really hasn’t been business as usual in Marion the last few days, either for the town or the Marion County Record.

A few people in this rural central Kansas town of about 2,000 said they were unaware of the recent raid on the newspaper office, while others wanted to avoid commenting on the wave of national attention Marion has received since its police department raided the local newspaper and the home of the publisher and owner Eric Meyer on Friday morning.

Those who chose to speak seemed perplexed by what happened — including the sudden death of 98-year-old Joan Meyer, who had co-owned the newspaper with her son the day after the raid.

There are “good people” on both sides, several said.

“This is our community, our police department, our newspaper. At the end of the day you want to be right,” said Chris Hernandez, an Edward Jones financial adviser with an office on Main Street. “Good people in this town want it to be right. At the end of the day we want to be proud of what’s happening in our community.”

Police seized computers, cell phones and other assets needed to publish the Marion County Record on Friday, executing a warrant signed off on by Marion County Court Magistrate Judge Laura Viar. The warrant alleged there was probable cause to believe that identity theft and unlawful computer acts may have been committed concerning Marion restaurant owner, Kari Newell. Owner and publisher Eric Meyer has strongly denied his newspaper has done anything wrong.

Newell previously threw Meyer and a Record reporter out of an event for Republican U.S. Rep. Jake LaTurner.

Police Chief Gideon Cody was back making the rounds Monday, but when contacted at the police station in the early morning, waived off any comments, directing questions to the Kansas Bureau of Investigation.

On Sunday, KBI Director Tony Mattivi released a statement saying the agency needed to investigate any allegations of wrongdoing.

“In order to investigate and gather facts, the KBI commonly executes search warrants on police departments, sheriff’s offices, and at city, county and state offices,” the statement read. “We have investigated those who work at schools, churches and at all levels of public service. No one is above the law, whether a public official or a representative of the media.”

Meyer, who serves as editor and reporter as well as owner and publisher, worked with his small staff and some outsiders who have volunteered to help Monday to prepare the next edition of his small weekly newspaper due out Wednesday.

The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press and more than 30 news media organizations late Sunday sent a letter to Cody condemning the raid. On Monday, the Society of Professional Journalists announced it was offering up to $20,000 in legal fees for the paper after an emergency meeting Sunday night with the Kansas Press Association. SPJ President Claire Regan said in a statement: “By all accounts, the raid was an egregious attack on freedom of the press, the First Amendment and all the liberties we hold dear as journalists in this great country.”

In the midst of it all, residents who were willing to comment publicly Tuesday found themselves perplexed at what has happened and wondering what prompted the raid.

‘Our job is to get it right’

“Something doesn’t smell right,” Hernandez said. “We hope there was a reason for the level they went to, we hope that was needed. If not we’ve got problems. That wasn’t right.”

Hernandez said he has “heard all of the arguments about our local paper — “that they are biased, they are unfair. At the same time they are providing an alternative view. They are looking at it the way others aren’t. I think that is what a newspaper is supposed to do … it’s not to make you feel comfortable, it’s to make you think.”

Hernandez who called the raid “unprecedented,” also said, “I don’t think in my life I’ve seen law enforcement seize the digital assets of a paper. We are a good community. We have good people. We have hard working people. We are all humans prone to error. Our job is to get it right.”

Hernandez expressed some support for the Marion County Record and its owner.

“With our local newspaper, the one thing I’ve never questioned is their loyalty to our community,” Hernandez said, noting that he knows running a small community newspaper is not a lucrative business, and that the publisher, Eric Meyer, 69, returned to Marion after a career at larger newspapers and teaching at the University of Illinois.

“I think he loves this community, I do,” Hernandez said.

‘Support Marion P.D.’

Across the street, there was a sign in the window that read: “Support Marion P.D.”

Jared Smith, who was working on the outside of the building, taking down the sign for a now-closed spa that his wife ran, said the business was the focus of a number of stories in the paper that he characterized as negative.

“The paper,” he said, “is basically an Eric Meyer’s opinion piece.”

“They chased more businesses out of town. They’ve made more people leave. When you start harping on stuff you send a lot of people away,” Smith said.

“We are going backward as a community. We’re dying,” he added. “We should have businesses that support each other and be happy. We don’t need the negative gospel mill. We need positivity. We have a lot of people over here doing great things, and they’re second- and third-page news.

“I like the new chief of police, he’s a great guy,” said Smith, referring to Cody, who was hired earlier this year.

“I’m happy the police chief is standing up… If they (Marion County Record) are doing something illegal and it’s wrong, I’m glad they are holding them to a standard.”

Smith said he respects journalism and the role of a community newspaper, but he doesn’t want to see any paper hurt the community.

“Maybe the police did something wrong, maybe the paper did something wrong. “I don’t know. It’s not my place to judge that. If a judge signed off on it, there is obviously some reason for that. Our people have higher standards than that. They’re good people,” Smith said.

‘It will spread’

At the senior center on Monday, Bobby Herren delayed lunch because he wanted to talk about the incident.

“This is a huge deal. Every newspaper in this country ought to get behind (the Marion County Record),” he said. “I would personally sue everyone.”

“This is a good town and we’ve got good people,” but he added: “The judge had no reason to do that.”

He called the raids “Gestapo action” and “unacceptable.”

“If you have police raiding a newspaper, and an (elderly) woman dying, that’s a big deal. This is gigantic. If they get away with it, it will spread to every town.”

Back to work

{p class=”css-at9mc1 evys1bk0”}Meyer, 69, worked as a reporter for The Milwaukee Journal and as a professor at the University of Illinois. His father, Bill, worked at The Marion County Record there for half a century, eventually becoming its top editor. In 1998, his family bought the newspaper from the Hoch family, which had owned it for more than 100 years.

Meyer worked Monday to get out the next edition of the paper, even as he faced a steady stream of regional and national media lined up for interviews. On a positive front, he said the paper has been inundated with calls from around the country from people wanting to subscribe as a way to support the paper. As of noon, the number of subscriptions was up by 1,000, staffers at the paper confirmed.

Meyer has denied from the start, including during an interview in his office Sunday, that the newspaper has done anything illegal. He said the newspaper sought a copy of the probable cause affidavit required for the search warrant that resulted in the raid, but Meyer said the district court told him the court was unable to produce it “as there is not a P.C. affidavit filed.”

Monday, Emily Bradbury, executive director of the Kansas Press Association, said it doesn’t have to be released for a week. A number of news organization, including CNHI, have filed open records requests for the document.

According to Meyer, the newspaper received information from a confidential source that Newell had been convicted of drunken driving in 2008 and had driven without a license, and was applying for a liquor license for a business. The newspaper did not publish a story about the information and Meyer alerted local police of the tip.

Newell, who could not be reached for comment, accused the newspaper at a city council meeting of illegally obtaining the information about her, according to multiple published accounts.

Meyer said in the interview on Sunday that the paper has been investigating the police department following several allegations that had been received after the hiring of Cody as chief this spring.

Meyer also spoke of his mother and attributed her death to stress from the raid.

“She was totally beside herself,” he said.

On Monday, details for her funeral were posted on a temporary sign in front of a vacant building just down the street from the closed shop with the “Support Marion P.D.” sign.