'You're an ASSHOLE! Get Out of My House!': Video Captures the 98 Year Old Newspaper Owner Who Died After a Police Raid on Her House Confronting the Chief Under Investigation for Sexual Misconduct

Mark Reinstein. Shutterstock Images.

When a newspaper gets raided in a once-free country under the orders of a police chief they were investigating for sexual harassment charges at his old job? You know that story isn't going to go away any time soon. It's going to have layers upon layers of sordid details, scandal, intrigue, cover ups and corruption. Because this is exactly the kind of scenario the Founders where trying to prevent when they put Freedom of the Press into the first 30 words of the Bill of Rights. 

Here's the epic saga I'm talking about, just to bring you up to speed:

tl;dr: The Marion County Record in Kansas was working on a story about the town's new police chief, Gideon Cody, who had left the Kansas City PD, allegedly after complaints he sexually harassed a female employee:

Cody's department got a warrant from a judge to not only violate the most basic of Constitutional rights by raiding the Record's office and seize computers, documents and cellphones, but also the home of the paper's co-owner, 98 year old Joan Meyer. Within days, she was dead, and her co-owner son says she was in perfect health prior, and died from the stress. And just to thicken the plot some, it turns out the judge who signed off on the warrant that allowed the raids had two DUIs before all this while she was a state's attorney, but while driving a judge's car. That's the broad strokes of this. 

But where there's scandal and intrigue, there can also be moments of true heroism. This one tale certainly has one. And by some miracle, it was captured on a home security camera:

Holy moly. To call Joan Meyer "feisty" would be damning her with faint praise. This woman was a warrior, defending our most sacred rights. A pirate queen, willing to put to the sword any who dared take her basic liberties away. 

This is how you speak truth to power. This is how you afflict the comfortable and comfort the afflicted. I mean, just listen to the tone of disgust in her voice when she realizes she's face-to-face with the (allegedly) crooked cop her paper had been looking to expose as a (reported) sex creep. "Does your mother love you? Do you love your mother? You're an ASSHOLE! Police chief? You're the chief??? Oh, God …" Just straight condescension with a chaser of contempt. 

It's sad whenever an innocent person is persecuted. Especially when it results in their death. But it's even more tragic when you see what kind of a firebrand this lady was. Her passing is truly a loss for anyone who appreciates free expression and can't stand it when a fellow American's rights get trampled. She was a fighter for justice. And we're all poorer for her passing. 

Advertisement

The Kansas State Police are looking into this situation and all the items seized have been returned. Too late for our hero here, but a positive nevertheless. All we can do is hope that justice prevails. And that all of us, should we make it to 98, still have the fire in the belly this Girl Boss possessed. RIP, Joan.