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Man Jailed for Facebook Meme Is Freed in Tennessee
More than a month after he was arrested for sharing a meme on Facebook, 61-year-old Larry Bushart Jr. walked out of the Perry County jail in Linden, Tennessee, on Wednesday, where his wife was waiting to take him home. He wore a weary smile and the same white T-shirt he had on the night he was jailed. A reporter from a local news station, which had previously splashed his mugshot on its website, approached for an interview.
“Thanks to all and any supporters out there,” Bushart said. “And very happy to be going home.”
“I didn’t seek to be a media sensation,” he added. “But here we are. Yeah, that’s about all I can say right now.”
Bushart’s case raised a firestorm of controversy after he was arrested, jailed, and slapped with a $2 million bail for a social media post. His supposed crime: making a threat of mass violence against a school in a neighboring county. In reality, all he had done was repost a meme. On Saturday, September 20, he had visited a community page, “What’s Happening in Perry County, TN,” and trolled a thread about an upcoming vigil honoring Charlie Kirk.
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The Absurd Prosecution of a Man Who Posted a Charlie Kirk Meme
One of his posts was a photo of President Donald Trump, along with the quote “We have to get over it,” drawing from his response to a school shooting in Perry, Iowa, in 2024. The post caught the attention of Perry County Sheriff Nick Weems, who had publicly mourned Kirk and shared information about the vigil. Armed with a Tennessee law that was aimed at preventing school shootings but which has ensnared numerous people for their social media activity, the sheriff got a warrant for Bushart’s arrest. According to Weems, the words “Perry High School” in the meme were interpreted by locals as a threat to a high school in Perry County. In statements to the press, Weems claimed Bushart had caused “mass hysteria.”
Yet there was no evidence of any hysteria. The local school district had not received any communications from the sheriff’s department warning them of a threat, nor had it sent any warnings to the school community. Although the........
© The Intercept
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