The Tennessee man who spent 37 days in jail for posting an anti-Trump meme on Facebook has filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against the sheriff, a sheriff’s office investigator and the county.
I’m rooting here for Larry Bushart, 61, to get low eight figures, and for Perry County, Tennessee, to have to rename itself.
Bushart County, Tennessee, has a nice ring to it, doesn’t it?
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“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,” said Bushart, who was arrested on Sept. 21 on a charge of “threatening mass violence at a school,” after posting a meme in a Facebook group on a thread referencing a local Charlie Kirk vigil with a photo of Donald Trump and a quote from the president saying “We have to get over it.”
The quote was attributed, accurately, to “Donald Trump on the Perry High School mass shooting one day after,” and Bushart had added the message, “Seems relevant today.”
The meme referenced a Trump comment on a mass shooting at a Perry High School in Iowa in 2024.
Hours after the post went up, officers showed up at Bushart’s front door with an arrest warrant from Perry County, Tenn., a 45-minute drive from his home in Lexington, Tenn.
The Perry County sheriff, Nick Weems, claimed that because the meme that Bushart had posted referenced the 2024 shooting at Perry High School in Iowa, it could be interpreted as a threat against Perry County High School in Tennessee.
At the sheriff’s request, then, local police in Lexington visited Larry’s home around 8 p.m. to inform him that the Perry County sheriff’s office might be in contact with him.
Bodycam footage indicates the officer was just as confused as Bushart was.
“So, I’m going to be completely honest with you, I have really no idea what they’re talking about,” the officer said. “He just called me and said there were some concerning posts that were made. … I don’t know, I just know they said something was insinuating violence.”
“No, it wasn’t,” Bushart responded. “I’m not going to take it down.”
Perry County later issued a warrant for Bushart’s arrest, and local police returned after 11 p.m. to arrest him for “threatening mass violence at a school.”
Again, bodycam footage indicates local police were just as perplexed about why they were taking him into custody.
“I threatened no one …” Bushart told them. “I may have been an asshole, but …”
“That’s not illegal,” the officer finished for him.
Bushart was ordered held on a preposterous $2 million bond, with a hearing scheduled out into December; the charges were dropped on Oct. 29, a day after Weems gave a local TV interview in which he admitted that investigators knew that the meme was not about Perry County High School.
Weems had previously claimed that Bushart posted the meme “to indicate or make the audience think it was referencing our Perry High School,” which, the sheriff claimed, led “teachers, parents and students to conclude he was talking about a hypothetical shooting at our school. Numerous reached out in concern.”
An investigation by The Intercept didn’t come up with any evidence that even a single person “reached out in concern,” with that outlet reporting that “attorneys with the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression filed a series of open records requests with the school district asking for any communications to or from staff pertaining to the case – including terms like ‘shooting,’ ‘threat,’ and ‘meme.’
In response, the director of schools wrote that there were no records related to Bushart’s case.
Bushart is being represented in the case by the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression.
“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,” FIRE senior attorney Adam Steinbaugh said in a statement.
The suit alleges that Weems and investigator Jason Morrow knew that their actions in procuring the arrest warrant, which the sheriff acknowledged in the Oct. 28 TV interview was misleading, were “egregiously unconstitutional,” so they are both being sued in their personal capacities, meaning they would be on the hook for monetary damages.
“This lawsuit goes beyond Larry,” said FIRE attorney David Rubin. “It’s about making sure police everywhere understand that they cannot punish or intimidate people for sharing controversial opinions online. Law enforcement across the country should be on notice: respect the First Amendment, or prepare to face the consequences.”
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Chris Graham
