'Get out of my house!' Video shows 98-year-old mother of Kansas newspaper publisher upset amid raid
Posted: August 23, 2023 - 3:00am

This screen grab of security camera footage provided by Eric Meyer shows his mother, Joan Meyer, ordering police officers to get out of her house as they searched it on Aug. 11, 2023, in Marion, Kan. Joan Meyer, who was 98, died the next day. Her son, Marion County Record Editor and Publisher Eric Meyer, blames his mother's death on the stress caused by the search. (Eric Meyer via AP)

MARION, Kan. (AP) — Newly released video shows the 98-year-old mother of a Kansas newspaper publisher confronting police officers as they searched her home in a raid that has drawn national scrutiny, at one point demanding: “Get out of my house!”

Video released by the newspaper Monday shows Joan Meyer shouting at the six officers inside the Marion, Kansas, home she shared with her son, Marion County Record Editor and Publisher Eric Meyer. Standing with the aid of a walker and dressed in a long robe or gown and slippers, she seems visibly upset.

“Get out of my house ... I don't want you in my house!” she said at one point. “Don't touch any of that stuff! This is my house!” she said at another.

The raids of the newspaper and the homes of the Meyers and a City Council member happened on Aug. 11, after a local restaurant owner accused the newspaper of illegally accessing information about her. Joan Meyer died a day later. Her son said he believes that the stress contributed to her death.

A prosecutor said later that there was insufficient evidence to justify the raids, and some of the seized computers and cellphones have been returned. Meanwhile, the initial online search of a state website that the police chief cited to justify the raid was legal, a spokesperson for the agency that maintains the site said Monday.

The raid on the Record put it and its hometown of about 1,900 residents in the center of a debate about press freedoms protected by the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and Kansas’ Bill of Rights. It also exposed divisions in the town over local politics and the newspaper’s coverage of the community, and put an intense spotlight on Police Chief