'Ex-cop sues after arrest over anti-Trump meme'

[Jrose]

'Larry Bushart spent 37 days in jail on a $2 million bond after posting a meme on Facebook in the wake of Charlie Kirk’s killing that quoted Donald Trump’s response to a different shooting.

The quote? “We have to get over it.”

“I spent over three decades in law enforcement, and have the utmost respect for the law,” Bushart said Wednesday. “But I also know my rights, and I was arrested for nothing more than refusing to be bullied into censorship.”

'Bushart and the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against Tennessee authorities alleging violations of his constitutional rights in retaliation for his protected speech.

“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.


(Reported by Alex Woodward, 17 December 2025, The Independent)

[JBTaurus83]

1. Unbelievable

I hope he puts that municipality into financial strain and they start cuts with that police force.

[Cirsium]

3. Lawsuits

Lawsuits are not going to stop this.

Putting a municipality into financial strain hurts a lot of innocent people, and will not lead to cuts with the police force.

[Cirsium]

2. Whoa

37 days in jail on a $2 million bond for a Facebook post.

[MarineCombatEngineer]

4. This will be an easy win for him and rightly so.

That fucking Sheriff had no right to arrest him, try to censor him and have him prosecuted and when he does win, the powers that be should have him removed.

[Cha]

5. I Hope So!

So Sorry for those in Tennessee who aren't Fascist Assholes.

[LetMyPeopleVote]

6. Deadline Legal Blog-Lawsuit for Facebook post arrest tests free speech after Charlie Kirk's assassination

"It is clearly established that the First Amendment prohibits government officials from arresting people for protected political speech," Larry Bushart's lawyers write.
https://www.ms.now/deadline-white-house/deadline-legal-blog/lawsuit-for-facebook-post-arrest-tests-free-speech-after-charlie-kirks-assassination

“In America, we do not jail people for political speech.”

That’s the first line of a lawsuit filed Wednesday against Tennessee law enforcement officials who arrested a man for a social media post following Charlie Kirk’s assassination in September.

Larry Bushart’s 37 days behind bars before his baseless charge was dropped, however, show that we do, in fact, do this in America.

But his civil action raises the question of what consequences, if any, there will be for that violation of American laws and values, which are being tested after the popular conservative commentator’s death with reprisals against people for speaking about the tragedy in ways that some powerful people don’t like.

Bushart is a retired law enforcement officer in Lexington, Tennessee. He posted a series of political memes on Facebook under a post about a vigil for Kirk in nearby Perry County, Tennessee. One of them quoted a statement that President Donald Trump made after an Iowa school shooting the year before in which Trump said, “We have to get over it.” Bushart wrote over that statement: “This seems relevant today…” .....

“It is clearly established that the First Amendment prohibits government officials from arresting people for protected political speech,” Bushart’s lawyers wrote in his complaint, explaining that he “brings this action to vindicate his constitutional rights and to deter Sheriff Weems, Investigator Morrow, and similarly situated officials from future misconduct.” The suit, which alleges violations of the First and Fourth Amendments, is against Perry County, Weems and Morrow, who will have an opportunity to respond in court.

The arrest of this man violates the Constitution and the First Amendment

[LetMyPeopleVote]

7. Washington Post-A retired policeman was jailed over an anti-Trump meme. Now he's suing.

Attorneys for 61-year-old Larry Bushart say a Tennessee sheriff violated the First Amendment: “In America, we do not jail people for political speech.”

Link to tweet

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2025/12/17/bushart-lawsuit-speech

A retired Tennessee policeman who spent more than a month in jail over an anti-Trump Facebook post is suing the authorities responsible for his arrest.

Attorneys for Larry Bushart, 61, filed a lawsuit in federal court Wednesday against a sheriff, an investigator and Perry County, which lies about halfway between Nashville and Memphis. The suit alleges that they violated Bushart’s First and Fourth Amendment rights when they ordered his arrest in September and held him for five weeks on charges of threatening mass violence — all in response to what Bushart contends was a harmless social media meme.

“In America, we do not jail people for political speech,” the lawsuit states. “Yet Larry Bushart spent 37 days behind bars simply for speaking his mind. It took a national uproar about his detention for Perry County officials to drop the charge against Mr. Bushart — a charge officials knew from the outset was unfounded.”

The lawsuit is Bushart’s bid to turn the tables on local authorities in a deep-red corner of rural Tennessee, where his prolific anti-Trump Facebook posting had annoyed some neighbors and amused others — until the day officers showed up at his house. He joins a growing number of liberal activists around the country who are pushing back on what they view as an overzealous crackdown on speech in the wake of the September killing of conservative activist Charlie Kirk......

Bushart appears to have a particularly strong case as someone who was arrested and jailed over a Facebook post, Cavedon said, adding that doesn’t necessarily mean he will win it.

“Hopefully everyone agrees that someone like Larry should get relief for sitting wrongly in jail for months,” Cavedon said. “Unfortunately, courts have created a lot of doctrines that make it really hard for people to get access to relief even when their rights have been violated” by the government. “Things like qualified immunity, prosecutorial immunity and judicial immunity mean that people have to jump over a lot of hurdles.”

This lawsuit makes me smile