Larry Bushart, a 61-year-old retired police officer in Tennessee, will collect $850,000 from local officials after spending 37 days behind bars for refusing to delete a Facebook meme about Charlie Kirk's death. The settlement, announced by the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, caps a case that started with a social media post and ended with a federal lawsuit, and a payout that Perry County taxpayers will now absorb.
Bushart was arrested in September after he declined authorities' demand that he take down the meme, which featured an image of President Donald Trump and the quote "We have to get over it", words Trump originally said in 2024 following a school shooting at Perry High School in Iowa. Bushart captioned the post "This seems relevant today..." in the wake of Kirk being killed while speaking to college students in Utah.
For that, a local investigator obtained an arrest warrant. Bushart was booked on a felony charge and held under a $2 million bond, a staggering sum for a social media post that, by the sheriff's own admission, was never treated as a genuine threat.
Perry County Sheriff Nick Weems, named as a defendant in Bushart's subsequent federal lawsuit, told news outlets that the meme did not actually lead investigators to believe there was a real threat. Instead, Fox News Digital reported, Weems said the case hinged on how some people could potentially interpret the meme as a threat to a local school.
FIRE put it more bluntly. The free-speech organization said the arrest warrant rested on the "absurd notion" that Bushart's meme could be read as a threat against Perry County High School in Tennessee, a school that shares a name with the Iowa school referenced in the original Trump quote but has no other connection to the post.
FIRE also stated that Bushart did not create or alter the meme. He simply shared it.
Authorities dropped the felony charge in October, roughly five weeks after the arrest. But by then the damage was done. While locked up under a bond more commonly associated with violent offenders, Bushart lost his post-retirement job. He missed his wedding anniversary. He missed the birth of his granddaughter.
Bushart filed a federal lawsuit against Perry County, Sheriff Weems, and the unnamed investigator who secured the warrant. The suit detailed the personal toll of his detention, the lost employment, the family milestones he could not attend, and the constitutional rights he says were trampled.
The case is part of a broader pattern that FIRE has tracked since Kirk's death. The organization noted that hundreds of Americans have been censored for online speech in the aftermath of the killing. FIRE currently represents Monica Weeks, a public servant who was fired by the state for a Facebook post criticizing Kirk shortly after his death.
The legal fight over Kirk's assassination continues on other fronts as well. Defense lawyers for the accused killer have questioned whether the bullet recovered at autopsy matches the rifle found at the scene, raising forensic questions that could shape the trial.
Meanwhile, a Utah judge recently ruled that prosecutors can remain on the murder case after the defense alleged conflicts of interest, a motion that was rejected by the court.
In the statement announcing the settlement, Bushart expressed relief that the ordeal is over. FIRE senior attorney Adam Steinbaugh framed the case as a warning about government overreach directed at constitutionally protected speech.
"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."
Steinbaugh added that while FIRE is pleased Bushart has been compensated, "local law enforcement never should have forced him to endure this ordeal in the first place."
Bushart himself kept his comments measured. In a statement released through FIRE, he said:
"I am pleased my First Amendment rights have been vindicated. 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."
Fox News Digital reached out to Perry County Mayor John Carroll for comment. No response was reported.
Consider the sequence. A retired cop shares a meme on Facebook. He does not create it. He does not alter it. The meme references a real quote from the president. Local authorities ask him to delete it. He refuses. An investigator obtains an arrest warrant. The man is jailed on a felony charge with a $2 million bond. The sheriff later admits the post was not viewed as a genuine threat. The charge is dropped. The county writes an $850,000 check.
That is not law enforcement protecting public safety. That is a local government punishing a citizen for speech it found distasteful, and doing so with the full machinery of the criminal justice system.
The fallout from Kirk's death has touched institutions far beyond Perry County. Utah Valley University drew criticism for selecting a Kirk critic as commencement speaker in the wake of the tragedy. And Arizona Governor Katie Hobbs vetoed a memorial license plate honoring Kirk, a decision that drew sharp rebukes from conservatives who saw it as petty partisanship aimed at a man who could no longer speak for himself.
None of that context excuses what happened to Bushart. A $2 million bond for a meme. Thirty-seven days in a cell. A felony charge that evaporated the moment it faced scrutiny. A sheriff who acknowledged there was no real threat, yet whose department arrested the man anyway.
The $850,000 settlement is not coming from the personal accounts of the sheriff or the investigator who swore out the warrant. It will come from Perry County, which means it will come from the people who live there and pay taxes there. The officials who made the decision to arrest Bushart walk away with their jobs. The taxpayers pick up the tab.
FIRE's broader tracking of post-Kirk speech crackdowns suggests this is not an isolated incident. The organization says hundreds of Americans have faced censorship for online expression since the killing. If even a fraction of those cases involved government action as heavy-handed as Bushart's, the legal exposure could multiply.
The First Amendment does not protect only speech that officials find comfortable. It exists precisely to shield the speech that makes authorities uneasy. A meme, tasteless or not, shared on a personal Facebook page by a private citizen is exactly the kind of expression the Bill of Rights was written to protect.
Perry County learned that lesson at $850,000 a class. The question is whether anyone else in government is paying attention.
