Washington —

The publisher of a Kansas tabloid that was raided by police in August is suing the officials involved in the conduct, accusing them of violating the newspaper’s First Amendment rights.

when police in Marion, Kan., raided the newspaper’s newsroom marion county records and the hometown of its publisher, Eric Meyer, a move that was widely condemned by press freedom groups.

Meyer said he wanted to sue because the raids on his weekly newspaper had a significant impact on press freedom across the United States.

“We are the plaintiffs in this, but really, the plaintiff is American democracy,” Meyer told VOA. “They are trying to silence criticism – to silence any voices other than the voices they want to hear. We can’t let this This continues. We will not live up to our responsibilities as Americans.”

During the Aug. 11 raid, surveillance video showed police confiscating computers, cell phones, hard drives and other equipment from the newsroom. At the Meyer home, video showed Eric’s 98-year-old mother Joan, a co-owner of the newspaper, confronting police during a raid on their home.

Meyer’s lawsuit, filed Monday in U.S. District Court in Kansas, also claims the stress of the raid led to his mother’s death the next day.

After the attack, Joan “repeatedly told her son that her life would be meaningless if Marion became like this,” the lawsuit states.

Meyer said the nearly 130-page lawsuit, which took some time to put together, is the fourth filed by current and former newspaper staff over the incident.

Police defended the raid, saying they were responding to an identity theft complaint.

Meyer disagrees.

“This is an attempt by people to weaponize the criminal justice system for their own personal gain,” he said.

The newspaper is investigating the police chief who led the raid. Gideon Cody eventually resigned in October after body camera footage showed him looking through documents about himself.

“It’s clear we didn’t do anything wrong,” Meyer said, estimating the case won’t be resolved until 2026.