A retired Tennessee law enforcement officer was held in jail for more than a month this fall after police arrested him over a Facebook post of a meme related to the September assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk.
Prosecutors eventually dropped the criminal charge brought against Larry Bushart, but his stint behind bars came to exemplify the country’s tense political and legal climate following the tragedy, when conservatives sought to stymie public discourse about the late controversial figure that it saw as objectionable.
Now, Bushart is suing over his incarceration.
The former police officer shared a meme on Facebook about a vigil being held in Tennessee for Kirk.
“This seems relevant today,” read the meme, which included a photo of Trump and a quote the then-candidate made in 2024 following a shooting at Perry High School in Des Moines, Iowa.
“We have to get over it,” Trump is quoted as saying in the meme.
Four officers came to Bushart’s home the next day, arrested him and took him to jail for “threatening mass violence at a school.” Authorities at the time said that the post was understood locally to be a threat to an area school that has a similar name to the one where the 2024 shooting occurred, according to court records.
“When Mr. Bushart posted the meme, he had no inkling or reason to think that anyone would take it as a threat of violence. And unsurprisingly, defendants … have produced no evidence that any person interpreted the meme as a threat,” the lawsuit states. “In fact, the Perry County School District has no records at all concerning Mr. Bushart or the meme.”
And there are people in this country who may still see nothing wrong with this, because it involves their dear blameless president.
And this guy was a retired cop. Nobody is safe.
Too bad he was retired otherwise he would’ve only been suspended for a month with full pay. /s I hope he gets a shitload of money for being subject to the thought police hypocrisy.
This is the way.
If fucking Nazis are still permitted to go on marches (and that’s the typical case discussed) then someone sure as FUCK can say whatever they want about some asshat like Kirk passing away…
Turns out being a cop doesn’t protect you from the regime.
Wish all the law enforcement officers who voted for a convicted felon and adjudicated rapist realized that before voting for a convicted felon and adjudicated rapist.
Cops often grew up under similar circumstances to many people who joined gangs. Being a cop is just being part of the biggest most untouchable gang of them all.
Well, let’s be real, BANKERS are the biggest most untouchable gang!
Yeah, but cops utilize actual physical violence. They are thugs.
Yup I hear they’re as untouchable as health insurance ceo’s. Hmm I guess when I think about most powerful people are.
Kirk hasn’t said anything racist in a while.
Now that the emotion has died down and I can look at Charlie Kirk’s assassination as a whole and what came of it, i can confidently say that the world feels slightly better without Charlie Kirk in it. I don’t mourn him.
Looks like we found a cure for racism
(From the article)
This is the image they jailed him for.
This should be a slam dunk win for him. Blatant political retribution. The people who jailed him should be jailed, disbarred, fined, etc., the citizens shouldn’t have to pay the court award for their fascism.
Are you fucking kidding me? He simply quoted Trump and got jail time? What a fucking joke.
Thou shall not offend the Dear Leader!
May I say thanks for the pixelation. I’m serious, it’s tiring looking at his ugly clueless face all the time.
It’s amazing how expressive that face is, simultaneously conveying limitless malice and stupidity. The face of a child rapist? It’s believable.
Even Bob Gale, who had access to a real time machine when penning Back to the Future 2, had to dial back how Biff Tannen represented Trump to get a PG rating. Meanwhile a documentary about our sitting president that only tells objective facts could potentially get an NC-17. Guess that’s why the voting age is 18.
He is like a living testament to the Roald Dahl aphorism about thinking evil thoughts making you look evil.
somebody’ll come by and removed about censorship in 3…2…
alexandria ocasio-cortez looks a bit better than trump. seriously!
Are you some kind of spam account? Seriously?
i actually have autism which is why i type like that. seriously!
No shit, but it doesn’t matter. SCOTUS and too many other courts are MAGA.
I never thought I’d side with a retired Tennessee cop, but here I am
Let’s not use the opinionated word “tragedy.”
this is america. it’s free speech. seriously!
He quoted Trump saying ‘We need to just get over it’ about the Perry High School shooting in Iowa.
What he said wasn’t even hateful, it was a fucking quote.
This news story existing a decade ago would have broke the minds of most Americans. Even those that support Trump now. It’s amazing how the slow trickle of Fascism is normalized in society.
Well, it was from Trump, so it was a pretty hateful quote, to be fair
Fair point
The same guy who said Rob Reiner “died due to TDS”?
Its OK when Chavez he president does it
And not even close to encouraging breaking the law. I’ve heard politicians have essentially the same “let’s move on” attitude about school shootings.
Some politicians wear AR-15 pins. I wish I was joking.
All Kimmel did was play clips of trump.
I got in trouble with Facebook once for quoting Trump’s thing about how he could shoot someone without losing supporters. If it isn’t appropriate to say on Facebook, it isn’t appropriate to say in a presidential campaign!
I created a Facebook page called “Fled Cruz”, the profile picture was Rafael “Ted” Cruz and the only thing I posted was quotes of his tweets, Facebook shut it down for hate speech. They denied the appeal and deleted the entire page.
Fuck the Zuck
we need socialism
As he should, absolutely his first amendment right was violated.
If the right can spout pure hatred and bullshit with impunity, so can everyone else.
He is the right wing. It was a meme of hate supporting kirk.
He isn’t, it wasn’t, and you’re an asshole.
It was a picture of Trump with a quote that he had said about a school shooting saying “We have to get over it”. This guy also added “This Seems Relevant”
Perfect username lol.
No.
The US has lost their license to roast us (the rest of the world) for saying mean things on the internet and getting a vist from the police. Welcome to the club you fat removed.
I assure you the United States has both people who will continue to try making that roast, and people who never felt like they had that freedom in the first place.
I don’t know what planet you live on but it’s the rest of the world roasting the US.
Free speech was always an Americans roasting the rest of the world thing I’m not sure how you can deny that. We must live on different planets. It has only recently become reversed recently with trump being a dictator.
Free speech was always an Americans roasting the rest of the world thing I’m not sure how you can deny that.
What does that even mean? We’re not the only country with concepts of free speech. The Enlightenment happened in Europe and some of those ideas are there as well and they can and do use it to roast the US.
Grammatically, I don’t know what “always an Americans” means. I’m not sure if you know how to use punctuation.
It has only recently become reversed recently with trump being a dictator.
Completely wrong. The US has been criticized before and generally rightly so. Although in your case, it seems to be based more on ignorance and bigotry than anything.
Its not that serious. This is not an actual analysis on free speech. I am not saying Americans are the only ones with free speech god dam. Its just a joke about a common online joke.
At least he is American and can sue. Some immigrants were deported and had their lives destroyed just because they had their opinions
