Why did police raid the offices of a small-town Kansas newspaper? The Friday raid on the offices of the Marion County Record certainly looks like a major incursion on freedom of the press—with disastrous results for not just the civil liberties but also the physical well-being of newspaper staff.

The paper attributes the Saturday death of 98-year-old co-owner Joan Meyer to stress from the raids on her home and the paper’s office. “Stressed beyond her limits and overwhelmed by hours of shock and grief after illegal police raids…Meyer, otherwise in good health for her age, collapsed Saturday afternoon and died at home,” the paper reports. It adds that she “had not been able to eat” or sleep on Friday after the raids.

[Brown suggests that the police raided the paper to uncover a leak within the department. If so, then this is grossly unconstitutional, and the moral weight of Meyer’s death falls on those who ordered and executed it, if not the legal liability. Meyer’s estate will have one heck of a wrongful-death lawsuit forthcoming, one assumes. — Ed]