Police chief who raided small Kansas newspaper resigns
Gideon Cody, the small-town Kansas police chief who spearheaded a raid on the Marion County Record, resigned Monday, Marion Mayor David Mayfield said.
Mayfield hired Cody in the spring and suspended him last week without explanation.
At Monday’s Marion City Council meeting, Mayfield announced Cody handed in his resignation before the meeting, “effective immediately.” Mayfield declined to talk to reporters after the meeting and offered no explanation for Cody’s departure.
Mayfield appointed Marion Officer Zach Hudlin as acting chief, with the council’s approval.
The mayor had previously defended Cody and said he would not take any action until the Kansas Bureau of Investigation finished its probe into the raids. Last week, he reversed that decision and suspended Cody. He would not say why.
Cody had left the Kansas City Police Department to work in Marion under suspicious circumstances. His raid of The Record newsroom followed questions from a reporter about his background.
Hudlin, who has been with the Marion Police Department since October 2017, participated in the raid of The Record’s newsroom. The Record reported recently that Hudlin can be seen in body-camera video rifling through documents that included information about Cody’s background. He directed Cody to look at the file the reporter had accumulated on Cody.
In the application for a search warrant, Cody wrote that he was investigating identity theft and unlawful acts concerning computers. The case pertained to local businesswoman Kari Newell’s driving records.
Searches unfolded Aug. 11 at the newsroom; the home of Joan Meyer and her son Eric Meyer, who own the paper; and City Council member Ruth Herbel.
Five days after the raid, Marion County Prosecutor Joel Ensey said “that insufficient evidence exists to establish” a strong connection “between the alleged crime and the places searched and the items seized.” The items were returned.
The newspaper said a reporter had accessed information from the Kansas Department of Revenue website that was open to the public.
A different reporter, Deb Gruver, filed a federal lawsuit in late August alleging that her cellphone was illegally seized and her finger was injured by Cody during the raid. Additional lawsuits are expected to be filed. One of them could include a wrongful death claim after Joan Meyer died from cardiac arrest the day after the raid.
Eric Meyer, who attended Monday’s meeting, said he’s happy Cody resigned, but he has questions about Hudlin’s appointment since he searched through Gruver’s belongings, which he said exceeded the scope of the search warrant.
“Good,” Meyer said of Cody’s resignation. “Now I guess we don’t have to wait to find out if he’s on paid or unpaid leave.”
Herbel, who previously told The Eagle she was living in fear with Cody still on the job, said he made the right choice by stepping down.
“I’m glad he resigned,” Herbel said after the meeting. “Now we can start to move forward as a community.”
Contributing: Katie Moore of The Kansas City Star
