A central Kansas police force sparked a firestorm by raiding a newspaper and the publisher’s home

Eric Meyer, the editor and publisher of the Marion County Record, answers questions Sunday about a raid by local police and sheriff’s deputies on his newspaper’s newsroom and his home. Police seized computers, his cellphone and his home’s internet router. (Associated Press)

MARION, Kan. — 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.