A former Tennessee law enforcement officer is taking legal action against his local county and sheriff after he was arrested and spent over a month in jail for sharing a meme on Facebook related to the killing of conservative activist Charlie Kirk.
The Arrest and 37-Day Incarceration
According to a detailed 30-page lawsuit filed this week, Larry Bushart, 61, shared the contentious post in the comments section of a Facebook post about a vigil for Charlie Kirk in Perry County, Tennessee. The incident occurred ten days after Kirk's assassination on 10 September.
The meme featured a photograph of Donald Trump alongside a remark the former US president made following a 2024 school shooting in Perry, Iowa: “We have to get over it”. Bushart captioned the shared image with the words: “This seems relevant today”.
The following day, police arrived at Bushart's home, took him into custody, and charged him with “threatening mass violence at a school”. Unable to pay the extraordinarily high $2 million bond, Bushart remained in jail for a total of 37 days before the criminal charge was finally dropped in late October, securing his release.
Contested Interpretation and Official Justification
Perry County Sheriff, Nick Weems, defended the arrest at the time, claiming that some local residents might have interpreted the online post as a threat directed at Perry County High School. This was despite the meme explicitly referencing the unrelated Perry High School in Iowa, where the 2024 shooting had taken place.
In interviews with local media, Sheriff Weems stated the post caused “multiple people” to become “scared to send their kids to school”. He acknowledged that his office was aware the meme referred to a past shooting in another state but contended that “the public did not know”. Weems also told The Tennessean that investigators believed Bushart was fully aware of the fear his post would cause and “intentionally sought to create hysteria within the community”.
The lawsuit, filed with the assistance of the non-profit Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), strongly disputes this characterisation. Bushart and his legal team argue he “had no inkling or reason to think that anyone would take it as a threat of violence” and allege the sheriff and county “have produced no evidence that any person interpreted the Meme as a threat”.
“In fact, the Perry county school district has no records at all concerning Mr Bushart or the meme,” the legal filing adds.
Legal Action and Broader Implications
The lawsuit targets Sheriff Nick Weems, Perry County, and investigator Jason Morrow, who is alleged to have obtained the arrest warrant at Weems's direction. It claims the defendants violated Bushart’s First and Fourth Amendment rights.
In a statement released through FIRE, Bushart said: “I spent over three decades in law enforcement, and have the utmost respect for the law. But I also know my rights, and I was arrested for nothing more than refusing to be bullied into censorship.”
Adam Steinbaugh, a senior attorney at FIRE, emphasised the wider significance of the case: “if police can come to your door in the middle of the night and put you behind bars based on nothing more than an entirely false and contrived interpretation of a Facebook post, no one’s first amendment rights are safe”.
The lawsuit notes that Bushart lost his post-retirement job in medical transportation due to his incarceration, which “made it impossible for him to perform his duties”. He is now seeking a jury trial, along with compensatory and punitive damages.
Bushart's arrest occurred amidst a national context where dozens of individuals across the United States faced employment disciplinary action or termination over social media posts concerning Charlie Kirk's death, as employers and officials cracked down on remarks deemed inappropriate.
Representatives for Perry County, Sheriff Weems, and Investigator Morrow did not immediately respond to requests for comment from The Washington Post.
