While many people across the U.S. lost their jobs over social media comments about Charlie Kirk’s death, Larry Bushart’s case stood out as something rarer and harder to shake: a criminal prosecution. A retired police officer, a shared meme, a county in Tennessee still raw from grief, and a chain of events that ended with one man spending more than a month in jail over protected political speech. Now, eight months later, the case is finally, officially over.
A retired Tennessee law enforcement officer who was held in jail for more than a month after police arrested him over a Facebook post of a meme related to the assassination of Charlie Kirk has settled an “unlawful incarceration” lawsuit for $835,000. The figure is striking. But so is what happened to Bushart in the months between his arrest and that check.
During his time in jail, Bushart lost his post-retirement job and missed his wedding anniversary and the birth of his granddaughter, according to a federal lawsuit he filed in December against Perry County, its sheriff, and the investigator who obtained the arrest warrant. By the time the story gathered national attention, the damage was done. The settlement doesn’t undo any of it. But it does make something clear about where the law stands.
What Kirk’s Death Set Off
On September 10, 2025, Charlie Kirk, an American right-wing political activist, was assassinated at Utah Valley University in Orem, Utah, while speaking at an outdoor campus debate planned by Turning Point USA, the conservative youth organization he co-founded and led. With around 3,000 people in attendance, Kirk was fatally shot in the neck with a single bullet by a sniper positioned on the roof of a building approximately 142 yards away.
The grief that followed was intense and polarizing. Candlelight vigils were held across the country. Shortly after Kirk’s death, the State Department instructed consular officials to monitor social media posts that celebrated Kirk’s assassination and to identify their authors. Secretary of State Marco Rubio later revoked visas from several foreign nationals who made such posts following earlier warnings to “prepare to be deported.” The political temperature was about as high as it gets.
Perry County, Tennessee, was no exception. Kirk’s killing had prompted an outpouring of grief among conservatives, including in Perry County, which is near Bushart’s home and which held a candlelight vigil. Into that atmosphere, Larry Bushart posted a meme.
The Meme, The Misread, The Arrest
The meme read “This seems relevant today,” and 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.” Bushart didn’t create the meme. He did not create or alter it. He posted it in a Perry County Facebook group the day of the vigil.
The shooting at Iowa’s Perry High School left two people dead and six others injured in January 2025. But some misinterpreted the meme as a threat against Perry County High School, located in Linden, Tennessee, where sheriff’s deputies later took Bushart into custody.
Here is where the story gets genuinely difficult to follow, because the key detail was never actually hidden. Sheriff Weems admitted in a later interview that he knew at the time of the arrest that Bushart’s Facebook post was a pre-existing meme that referred to an actual shooting that took place in a different state, over 500 miles away. But Weems and the county investigator left out that extremely important context from their warrant application.
In a statement, Sheriff Nick Weems said Bushart’s post caused “multiple, reasonable citizens to be in fear of their children’s safety at school.” He also claimed his investigator reached out to Lexington Police to “approach Mr. Bushart, and provide options to de-escalate the situation before an arrest was made. Mr. Bushart declined to clarify his public messages, and calm the situation.”
Four officers came to Bushart’s home the next day, arrested him and took him to jail for “threatening mass violence at a school.” His bail was set at $2 million. He was held behind bars for 37 days because he was unable to pay that bond.
In late October, a district attorney in Tennessee moved to drop the single charge brought against him, and he was subsequently released. His lawsuit then charged Perry County, Sheriff Nick Weems, and county investigator Jason Morrow with a series of constitutional violations, including infringements of his free speech rights and his Fourth Amendment right against “wrongful arrest, wrongful prosecution, and wrongful incarceration.”
The Lawsuit and the Settlement
Represented by the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) and Phillips & Phillips, PLLC, Bushart filed a federal civil rights lawsuit in December against Sheriff Nick Weems, Investigator Jason Morrow, and Perry County for violating his constitutional rights in retaliation for his protected speech.
As Bushart’s lawyers put it in the complaint: “It is clearly established that the First Amendment prohibits government officials from arresting people for protected political speech.” The argument wasn’t subtle. Neither, legally, was the case. The Supreme Court has long held that heated political rhetoric – even speech that offends or provokes – is protected under the First Amendment, unless it is specifically directed at inciting imminent lawless action and is likely to actually produce it. A reposted meme about a school shooting in Iowa clears that bar easily.
The case had been set to go to trial in late July before a federal jury in Memphis. It didn’t get there. Under the settlement, the county, Weems, and Morrow are not admitting any wrongdoing. The county’s insurer will pay the settlement.
In a joint statement released as part of the settlement, Weems said: “As Sheriff, there is no responsibility I take more seriously than protecting the children in our community, who are some of the most vulnerable among us. Ensuring their safety is not just a duty of this office, it is a commitment I carry with me every single day. I am happy to have this matter resolved, and I look forward to continuing to serve and protect the people of Perry County.”
For Bushart, the words were simpler. “I am pleased my First Amendment rights have been vindicated,” he said in his statement announcing the settlement. “The people’s freedom to participate in civil discourse is crucial to a healthy democracy. I am looking forward to moving on and spending time with my family.”
Not the Only One
Bushart’s case was the most dramatic of the Kirk-related free speech fallout, but it wasn’t isolated. He was just one of hundreds of Americans censored for online speech after Kirk’s assassination.
Monica Meeks, a lifelong public servant, was fired by the state of Tennessee for a Facebook post criticizing Kirk. And earlier this year, Austin Peay State University settled a lawsuit filed by a professor fired for citing Kirk’s own words on gun violence. FIRE is actively involved in both cases.
The $835,000 payout is among the largest tied to fallout from public reactions to Kirk’s death, following separate settlements for a Tennessee professor and an Iowa public defender who were also penalized for online commentary.
Bushart’s case stands apart from the others for one specific reason: he was actually jailed. Losing a job over a social media post is deeply unfair and, in some of these cases, legally actionable. But spending 37 days behind bars, missing the birth of a grandchild, losing income, and being charged with a felony over a reposted meme about a school shooting in Iowa – that is a different order of consequence entirely.
FIRE senior attorney Adam Steinbaugh put it plainly: “No one should be hauled off to jail in the dark of night over a harmless meme just because the authorities disagree with its message.”
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What to Do With All of This
An $835,000 settlement is a real thing. The county pays, the charge disappears from the record, and Bushart gets to move on. And to some extent, that is what happened. The vindication is real. The money is real.
But some of what Bushart absorbed in those 37 days can’t be put into a court filing. His lawyers noted in their complaint that their client, the primary breadwinner for his household, lost his post-retirement job because of his time in jail – and that the episode had stifled his “participation in online political conversation because he is afraid that something like his arrest and incarceration” could happen again. Read that last part again. He was afraid to speak. A man who once posted political commentary freely now hesitates before typing. An arrest does that, even one that gets reversed, even one that ends in a substantial payout. The fear doesn’t dissolve with the settlement check.
FIRE attorney Cary Davis said: “It’s in times of turmoil and heightened tensions that our national commitment to free speech is tested the most. When government officials fail that test, the Constitution exists to hold them accountable. Our hope is that Larry’s settlement sends a message to law enforcement across the country: Respect the First Amendment today, or be prepared to pay the price tomorrow.”
Political violence, grief, outrage, community fear: none of those things suspend the Bill of Rights. A county sheriff who knew a meme referred to a school in Iowa, and still signed off on a $2 million bail and a felony charge, is now facing the financial consequences. The settlement doesn’t say he was wrong – because settlements never admit anything. But $835,000 says something regardless.
Larry Bushart spent 37 days in a cell over a meme he didn’t create, in a county mourning a public figure he didn’t mourn. He got out. He filed a lawsuit. He found lawyers who believed in the case. And eight months later, he’s going home to his family with his First Amendment rights officially, and expensively, on the record.
AI Disclaimer: This article was created with the assistance of AI tools and reviewed by a human editor.