Who was Joan Meyer? Kansas paper co-owner who rebuked police raid as ‘Hitler tactics’ – and died a day later

Meyer's sudden death has ignited an outcry from news media advocates who condemned the police raid as something straight out of the authoritarian playbook

Police in the Kansas town where Joan Meyer had lived for almost a century had just raided her home and her newspaper - seizing electronics and reporting materials - during what she understood to be a leak investigation when another media outlet called her for comment.

These are Hitler tactics, and something has to be done," Meyer, a co-owner of the Marion County Record, told the Wichita Eagle on Friday, invoking a fascist dictator as her colleagues contemplated legal strategies to recover their confiscated items and hold authorities accountable for what many contend was an illicit raid.