The police chief of a small town in Marion County, Kansas, abruptly resigned on Monday after his raid on the Marion County Record's offices and other locations garnered nationwide attention and condemnation.
Dave Mayfield, who serves as the county's mayor, announced Marion Police Chief Gideon Cody’s resignation during a city council meeting. Cody was suspended from his position on Thursday, more than six weeks after the raid and following proclamations from Mayfield that Cody would not be punished until after the Kansas Bureau of Investigations (KBI) finished its investigation into the incident.
There has been no word of the KBI finishing its investigation and Mayfield declined to comment on why Cody was suspended before his resignation.
The August raid included the newspaper’s office, the owner’s home, a reporter's home and the home of the vice-mayor. All of the raids happened simultaneously and utilized nearly the entirety of the force’s on-duty officers.
Simultaneously, a reporter for the paper was investigating Cody’s past as a police captain in Kansas City. Cody abruptly resigned from that position a year before he would have received his pension and took the police chief job in Marion, despite a $50,000 reduction in pay. The paper had heard from multiple sources that Cody was facing demotion before his resignation due to sexual misconduct allegations.
The paper also decided not to publish a report on that because no sources would go on the record and the Kansas City Police Department declined to provide documentation, though they did ask Cody about the allegations.
A short time later, the Marion Police Department conducted its raids, alleging the newspaper accessed the information it had on Newell illegally. The paper claimed it obtained the information through public information and the city eventually confirmed the information was publicly available online.
Five days after the raid, the county’s attorney Joel Ensey withdrew the search warrant used in the raid, saying it was “legally insufficient.” A leaked email would later show Ensey was contacted by Cody about his plans to raid the paper, and which included his justifications for the raid according to local reports.
Mayfield appointed patrol officer Zach Hudlin as acting chief with the approval of the city council. In bodycam footage of the raid, Hudlin can be seen searching a reporter's desk, where he finds a folder marked with Cody’s name. It's said the file contained details about the outlet's investigation into him, including the identity of sources. Hudlin can be heard informing Cody about the file in the bodycam footage.
Cody eventually admitted he was facing demotion before retiring from his job in Kansas City, according to local reports. Bodycam footage also revealed him telling Newell after the raid that he had evidence to share with her but didn’t want to put it in a text message. Another portion of the video reportedly reveals him telling a deputy that he was having trouble turning off his bodycam but wanted to tell him a story once he turned it off.
The paper’s owner, Eric Meyer, told national media after Cody’s suspension on Thursday that although he was happy about the result, he finds the timing suspicious.
“It’s long overdue. You know, we had to wait more than six weeks to get him suspended,” said Meyer. “It kind of leads you to believe that there’s some smoking gun somewhere that everybody knows about and we’re going to try to get ahead of it.”
Meyer also expressed concerns about Hublin’s appointment, saying his actions during the search exceeded the scope of the warrant.