Larry Bushart’s Facebook page
Taxpayers in Perry County, Tennessee will pay a $835,000 to 61-year-old former police officer Larry Bushart to settle his lawsuit after the county sheriff imprisoned him for 37 days just for posting a meme. The settlement was announced Wednesday.
The meme — which Bushart posted last September 10, the day that a shooter killed anti-LGBTQ+ MAGA influencer Charlie Kirk — quoted Trump saying, “We have to get over it,” following a 2024 school shooting at Iowa’s Perry High School. Bushart wrote above the meme, “This seems relevant today.”
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Perry County Sheriff Nick Weems arrested Bushart, claiming that his meme came off as a threat to shoot up the local Perry County High School, even though Weems also said that he knew the meme referred to an Iowa school.
“Bushart was fully aware of the fear his post would cause and intentionally sought to create hysteria within the community,” Weems said at the time. Bushart’s imprisonment and $2 million bail drew national condemnation.
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In April 2023, Kirk said, “I think it’s worth to have a cost of, unfortunately, some gun deaths every single year so that we can have the Second Amendment to protect our other God-given rights. That is a prudent deal. It is rational.”