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.
(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.
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.
He is like a living testament to the Roald Dahl aphorism about thinking evil thoughts making you look evil.
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.
somebody’ll come by and bitch 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!
Are you fucking kidding me? He simply quoted Trump and got jail time? What a fucking joke.
Thou shall not offend the Dear Leader!
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.
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.
Most PDs are the biggest criminal organization in their city.
Well, let’s be real, BANKERS are the biggest most untouchable gang!
Yeah, but cops utilize actual physical violence. They are thugs.
Guess who pays the cops?
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.
I said it from the start and stand by it: however you feel about political assassination aside, Kirk was one of the only right-wing media figures who had a chance of keeping Trump’s political capital alive, as in, he was one of the few people with the charisma and messaging skill that he could charm MAGA’s into shifting tone to follow his lead.
Who else is going to hold onto a segment of America who are violently stupid, armed, patriotic, and have the attention spans of gnats and each think themselves to be some kind of comic book hero? Trump was able to capture them because he seemed genuine even though it was genuine hate and anger. Kirk could have kept the hate and anger alive under a skin of righteousness and Christian ideology that would have absolutely caught on in midwest America like fire through dry brush if the GOP decided to go whole-hog and fund him in the coming years.
We averted a massive problem with Kirk, and the way everyone around him is currently grasping for shreds of that political capital as it evaporates into the wind just further reinforces what I believe.
Who else is going to hold onto a segment of America
You left out aggressively ignorant.
Looks like we found a cure for racism
Meanwhile, republican politicians get away with saying the most vile shit about people with mental illnesses, minorities, the poor and women, as usual. The hypocritical circus is never ending.
Thought you said people?
/s
This is such an egregious violation of his rights that he should sue for millions because he’ll get it.
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…
I never thought I’d side with a retired Tennessee cop, but here I am
It’s been a rough year
Let’s not use the opinionated word “tragedy.”
And he will win
Yeah, but will any of the police officers involved in this disgrace lose anything? Or is it just going to be taxpayers signing a settlement check again?
If there’s one thing we’ve learned over the past decade or so, it’s that we’ll never learn.
this is america. it’s free speech. seriously!
we need socialism
Removed by mod
Moments before he finally became left-leaning.
On his deathbed, he changed his views on gun control.
I heard his neck just did that randomly
I’m no fan of this man, but is this the actual moment? If so, I don’t think we should be posting snuff content.
Your heart is in the right place and you are a decent human being for feeling this way. But it’s really, really ugly out there. Some folks are happy that a bad guy is dead. And they are right to feel that way.
checks community, .world
Yeah, that’s getting removed.
They’re skittish about controversial stuff since they’re so big (by Lemmy standards, at least).
Wanna know what got deleted? PM me.
scary thing is how they managed to find him (the retired cop) through facebook.
I mean isn’t your name right there on it? It isn’t even semi-anonymous.
I wouldn’t be surprised if someone in his cop friend circle reported him
It absolutely had to be a conservative in his circle looking to punish him.
