A federal lawsuit is now planned.
In this interview, the subject of the Kansas Newspaper raid speculates that the motive comes from “a confluence of personal animus from the mayor, a personal attempt to intimidate us from the police chief, and basic incompetence from the judge and the county attorney.” Judges and county attorneys/attorneys general being rubber stamps for corrupt cops have caused needless deaths and trampled on folks rights plenty in the past.
It’s a weird headline seeing as in the actual interview they offer their speculation which seems like they have a pretty good idea.
Props for adding it here as I was just commenting to complain about the headline!
The 98 year old editor of that newspaper died the day after the raid.
I understand that 98 is a bit of an extreme age, but I guarantee you that the stress of watching you constitutional rights being violated was the tipping point for this person’s health. Imagine living for 98 years and some shit cop pushes you to your grave.
all the cops should be charged with felony murder for the illegal armed home invasion resulting in death
There probably is no way to actually legally prove that they’re at fault. But if I was one of those cops, I’d have trouble sleeping at night.
Would this technically be the Streisand effect? Trying to cover some shit up for it national attention. The irony is always great.
No one outside of that community would have heard about the Police Chief’s dirty laundry, or that restaurant owner’s DUI. Now it’s national news, and all eyes are on it. It’s not technically the Streisand Effect, it’s EXACTLY the Streisand Effect.
This whole thing is shitty. The restaurant owner had a DUI years ago, which she was hiding because she really wanted her restaurant to get a (very lucrative) alcohol license. She was also repeatedly driving on a suspended license due to the DUI, something that the the local cops knew and completely ignored. Possibly because the DA’s brother owns the hotel the restaurant is in, and once they have an alcohol license he can raise the rent, maybe by an indecent amount. Oh, and multiple people have alleged that the police chief left his previous paid-twice-as-much job in Kansas City due to multiple serious accusations of sexual assault.
The Marion Record had investigated both the DUI and the sexual assault allegations, but had decided not to print either story due to journalistic concerns (they suspected the divorcing husband may have illegally accessed his wife’s accounts to send them copies of the DUI information, and none of the people bringing up the police chief’s alleged history would go on the record and the KC police personnel department wouldn’t give any information either).
Some locals says that the Record is “too aggressive” in it’s reporting, while others think that revealing this kind of thing is what newspapers are supposed to do. And in the meantime, the restaurant owner has gotten her liquor license, the hotel owner can (presumably) raise the rent, and the police chief got to keep the newspaper’s computers for five days - including (just ever-so-conveniently) the computer that contained the information the paper had on the people who were saying the police chief had left because of the sexual assault allegations. But I’m sure he never tried to find that information in the five days they had the computers because that would’ve been unethical, wouldn’t it …
The good news is that apparently the newspaper’s insurance is going to cover most of the costs of getting their equipment back, and they have a really nice lawsuit they’re going to go ahead with. I’m not sure how the lawsuit will go, what with qualified immunity:
Qualified immunity is a judge-made legal protection that shields government officials from claims of unconstitutional conduct. It is a unique and specialized defense available only to government actors and can, if applied, allow those actors to avoid responsibility for constitutional violations.
But who knows? Hopefully the town (the sheriff) and county (the judge) get hit with a really nice large fine, maybe even an actual punishment. There’s also a chance that the town/county’s insurance won’t cover the payout, which will suck for the residents.
The judge and county attorney would likely be shielded by qualified immunity, in my opinion. The police chief who wrote the affidavit, executed the warrant, and ran his mouth on Facebook (he hasn’t run his mouth since the county attorney withdrew the warrant for insufficient evidence btw) while having potentially ulterior motives might not find it so easy, however. Qualified immunity generally shields incompetence, but not malice.
Edit: I will note as an aside that the hotel already had a liquor license, the owner just didn’t want to keep it under his name when the restaurant was the one running the bar.
