#Marion Torrent

[camille-abilys]

not having to watch Marion Torrent be an indisputable starter anymore is therapeutic

[beardedmrbean]

MARION, Kan. (AP) — A small newspaper and a police department in Kansas are at the center of a dispute over freedom of speech that is being watched around the country after police raided the office of the local newspaper and the home of its owner and publisher.

Officials with the Marion Police Department confiscated computers and cellphones in the Friday raid, prompting press freedom watchdogs to condemn the actions of local authorities 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.

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 her restaurant during a political event.

While Meyer saw Newell's complaints — which he said were untrue — as prompting the raids, he also believes the newspaper's aggressive coverage of local politics and issues played a role. He said the newspaper was examining Cody's past work with the Kansas City, Missouri, police as well.

“This is the type of stuff that, you know, that Vladimir Putin does, that Third World dictators do," Meyer said during an interview in his office. "This is Gestapo tactics from World War II.”

Cody said Sunday that the raid was legal and tied to an investigation.

The raids occurred in a town of about 1,900 people, nestled among rolling prairie hills, about 150 miles (241 kilometers) southwest of Kansas City, making the small weekly newspaper the latest to find itself in the headlines and possibly targeted for its reporting.

Last year in New Hampshire, the publisher of a weekly newspaper accused the state attorney general’s office of government overreach after she was arrested for allegedly publishing advertisements for local races without properly marking them as political advertising. In Las Vegas, former Democratic elected official Robert Telles is scheduled to face trial in November for allegedly fatally stabbing Las Vegas Review-Journal reporter Jeff German after German wrote articles critical of Telles and his managerial conduct.

Meyer said that on Friday, one Record reporter suffered an injury to a finger when Cody wrested her cellphone out of her hand, according to the report. The newspaper's surveillance video showed officers reading that reporter her rights while Cody watched, though she wasn't arrested or detained. Newspaper employees were hustled out of the building while the search continued for more than 90 minutes, according to the footage.

Meanwhile, Meyer said, police simultaneously raided his home, seizing computers, his cellphone and the home’s internet router.

But as Meyer fielded messages from reporters and editors as far away as London and reviewed footage from the newsroom’s surveillance camera, Newell was receiving death threats from as far away, she said. She said the Record engages in “tabloid trash reporting” and was trying to hush her up.

“I fully believe that the intent was to do harm and merely tarnish my reputation, and I think if had it been left at that, I don’t think that it would have blown up as big as it was,” Newell said in a telephone interview.

Newell said she threw Meyer and the Record reporter out of the event for Republican U.S. Rep. Jake LaTurner at the request of others who are upset with the “toxic” newspaper. On the town's main street, one storefront included a handmade “Support Marion PD” sign."

The police chief and other officials also attended and were acknowledged at the reception, and the Marion Police Department highlighted the event on its Facebook page.

LaTurner's office did not immediately return phone messages left Sunday at his Washington and district offices seeking comment.

Newell said she believes the newspaper violated the law to get her personal information as it checked on the status of her driver's license following a 2008 drunken driving conviction and other driving violations.

The newspaper countered that it received that information unsolicited, which it verified through public online records. It eventually decided not to run a story because it wasn’t sure the source who supplied it had obtained it legally. But the newspaper did run a story on the city council meeting, in which Newell herself confirmed she'd had a DUI conviction and that she had continued to drive even after her license was suspended.

A two-page search warrant, signed by a local judge, lists Newell as the victim of alleged crimes by the newspaper. When the newspaper asked for a copy of the probable cause affidavit required by law to issue a search warrant, the district court issued a signed statement saying no such affidavit was on file, the Record reported.

Cody, the police chief, indicated that probable cause affidavits were used to get the search warrants. When asked for a copy, Cody replied in an email late Sunday that the affidavits would be available “once charges are filed.”

Cody defended the raid, saying in an email to The Associated Press that while federal law usually requires a subpoena — not just a search warrant — to raid a newsroom, there is an exception “when there is reason to believe the journalist is taking part in the underlying wrongdoing.”

Cody did not give details about what that alleged wrongdoing entailed.

Cody, who was hired in late April as Marion’s police chief after serving 24 years in the Kansas City police, did not respond to questions about how police believe Newell was victimized.

Press freedom and civil rights organizations said that police, the local prosecutor's office and the judge who signed off on the search warrant overstepped their authority.

“It seems like one of the most aggressive police raids of a news organization or entity in quite some time,” said Sharon Brett, legal director for the American Civil Liberties Union of Kansas, adding that it seemed “quite an alarming abuse of authority."

Seth Stern, director of advocacy for Freedom of the Press Foundation, said in a statement that the raid appeared to have violated federal law, the First Amendment, “and basic human decency.”

“The anti-press rhetoric that’s become so pervasive in this country has become more than just talk and is creating a dangerous environment for journalists trying to do their jobs," Stern said.

Meyer said he has been flooded with offers of help from press freedom groups and other news organizations. But he said what he and his staff need is more hours in the day to get their next edition put together.

Both he and Newell are contemplating lawsuits — Newell against the newspaper and Meyer against the public officials who staged the raid.

Meyer also blames the home raid for stressing his 98-year-old mother enough to cause her death on Saturday. Joan Meyer was the newspaper's co-owner.

As for the criticism of the raid as a violation of First Amendment rights, Newell said her privacy rights were violated, and they are “just as important as anybody else’s.”

[onlylivingboyinsanmyshuno]

hiii @adair-the-bard @hdmiports and @kieraplaysthesims tagged me in this! tysm

favorite color: orange and pink and recently green

currently watching: hour long youtube video about hello neighbor 2

last movie: campbell's kingdom (1957). best movie ever, highly recommend if you love british people doing bad canadian accents, mostly unintelligible by-the-numbers plotline, and oil drilling (as in you are pro-oil and hate nature)

currently reading: nothing really, occasionally skimming May We Be Spared To Meet On Earth (the correspondence of the men who were on Franklin's Expedition), The Wife of Bath: A Biography by Marion Turner, and The First Kennedys by Neal Thompson because I'm never not reading a book about the Kennedys. im probably never gonna finish any of these this year, and will instead read a few more ~300 pg mass market paperback thrillers and/or like some smutty romance novels

sweet/spicy/savory: savory, which i only recently learned is different from spicy. savory>sweet>spicy, its not that i cant handle spice i just dont rlly enjoy the taste

last thing i googled: : "mission impossible dead reckoning part i torrent" (rip rarbg u will be forever missed)

current obsession: skyrim modding, i cut down my core plugins to like 600 from 950 which is honestly a feat.

currently working on: downloading skyrim mods, fixing my linux install so i can update my docker containers so i can use my servers again, filling out my timesheet

tagging: @fujoshi-simone-weil @thebramblewood @kruxton @ethicaltreatmentofcowplants and anyone else who wants to do it!

[crystaldeclear]

Elise de Almeida vs Marion Torrent starting? Either way my day is ruined

[glimmerofawesome]

[hello-paralyzed-world]

MHSC really was the coolest team

[futfemdaily]

France National Team celebrate during the UEFA Women’s Euro 2022 Qualifier match between North Macedonia and France at Toše Proeski National Arena on September 22, 2020 in Skopje, North Macedonia. (Photo by Robert Atanasovski/AFP)

[fangirlingoveruu]

My little French pomme de terre please be okay

[the-necessary-unnecessary]

Do you know if Marion Torrent has signed a new contract with MHS? I though she was out of contract in 2020 and I haven’t seen any news about renewal but she’s the image for the new kit so I guess she’s staying 🤔 I got my hopes up that Barça would realise we need another reliable RB because Marta is 30 and can’t play 50 games...

hmmm I haven’t heard much about either about neither a contract renewal nor any other signing. If she’s on all their kit campaigns then I’d imagine she’s staying, she’s Montpellier through and through after all.

And Barça signing more defensive players than is absolutely necessary for them to hopefully not collapse mid game half way through the season??? What kind of utopia do you think we live in lol

[amelmajrii]

France vs Serbia - Lineup

Allez les bleues ❤️

[football-hqs]

[majris]

[teamroscoes]

[reborn-from-your-ashes]

Torrent makes me a nervous, I feel like she loses the ball often?

She does and the games against Brazil and the USA during the World Cup are good examples for that... She's late on some of the actions, giving space to the opponent and letting them go past her. It happened too many times in those two games and it did a lot of damage.

[crystaldeclear]

Elise de Almeida vs Marion Torrent starting? Either way my day is ruined

[glimmerofawesome]