Last month, I had the privilege of spending several days in Topeka, Kansas. I visited the statehouse to see its famed art collections. I had a delightful chance encounter with state Sen. Mary Ware of Wichita in the elevator on my way back home, who though I was bedraggled and tired, was pure warm-hearted welcome even after her own long day at work. She was a Democrat but she didn't care what my party was. She wanted to know what I thought of Kansas, as it was my first trip. I told her loved her beautiful state. She beamed and observed: "There's a lot more here than people think." She can say that again. Here's the news of what's going on just an hour and a half northeast of her own 25th state Senate district, according to the Associated Press:
MARION, Kan. (AP) — A small central Kansas police department is facing a torrent of criticism for raiding a local newspaper's office and the home of its owner and publisher, seizing computers and cellphones, and, in the publisher's view, stressing his 98-year-old mother enough to cause her weekend death.
Several press freedom watchdogs condemned the Marion Police Department's actions as a blatant violation of the U.S. Constitution's protection for a free press. The Marion County Record's editor and publisher, Eric Meyer, worked with his staff Sunday to reconstruct stories, ads and other materials for its next edition Wednesday, even as he took time in the afternoon to provide a local funeral home with information about his mother, Joan, the paper's co-owner.
A search warrant tied Friday morning raids, led by Marion Police Chief Gideon Cody, to a dispute between the newspaper and a local restaurant owner, Kari Newell. She is accusing the newspaper of invading her privacy and illegally accessing information about her and her driving record and suggested that the newspaper targeted her after she threw Meyer and a reporter out of restaurant during a political event.
The details of what seemed to be going on, based on the reports out there, suggest that the restaurant owner seemed to be in cahoots with the local police and was going through a divorce with an angry ex-husband who was accused of leaking her driving record to the Marion County Record. Those records revealed that she was driving on a suspended license after a drunk driving conviction, and the cops were doing nothing about it.............To Read More...
No comments:
Post a Comment