Cody nominated for dubious award

Former Marion police chief Gideon Cody has been nominated to receive a Golden Padlock Award, given annually to the nation’s most secretive agencies and individuals.

The dubious award, sponsored by the group Investigative Reporters and Editors, “honors” raids Cody led Aug. 11 on the Marion County Record and the homes of Record owners Eric and Joan Meyer and vice mayor Ruth Herbel.

His nomination states:

“Police body-cam video shows Meyer’s 98-year-old mother and co-publisher, Joan Meyer, shouting down police officers as they rifled through the family’s personal belongings. She died the next day of a heart attack.

“The newspaper had been chasing a tip it had received about Cody but had not published the information.

“The raid has been widely condemned as an illegal abuse of power designed to silence small-town journalists seeking to hold powerful figures in their community to account.

“Cody later resigned following release of video images of the raid showed him reviewing newspaper documents about himself.”