A 61-year-old retired Tennessee law enforcement officer spent 37 days in jail over a meme. A meme. Not a bomb threat. Not a manifesto. A meme. And now Perry County, Tennessee is cutting Larry Bushart an $835,000 check because apparently that's the going rate for shredding someone's First Amendment rights in the dark of night.
Only in America can the government throw you in a cage for posting something online, realize they massively screwed up, and then make the taxpayers foot the bill. Beautiful system we've got here.
Here's what happened. In September 2025, following the Charlie Kirk assassination, Bushart shared a post on social media featuring President Trump with the text "This seems relevant today…" and the quote "We have to get over it" — words attributed to Trump's 2024 statement after the Iowa Perry High School shooting. That was it. That was the whole "crime."
Perry County Sheriff Nick Weems and Perry County Mayor John Carroll apparently decided this constituted a felony threat of mass violence. They hauled Bushart out of his home and locked him up. A retired law enforcement officer — a man who spent his career on the right side of a badge — dragged off to jail over a social media post.
Bushart sat in a cell for 37 days, from September into October 2025. During that time, he missed his wedding anniversary. He missed the birth of his granddaughter. He lost his post-retirement job. All because some local officials couldn't distinguish between a meme and a credible threat. The district attorney eventually dropped the felony charge entirely, which tells you everything you need to know about how solid the case was.
As 100 Percent Fed Up reported, Bushart filed a lawsuit in December 2025, and the six-figure settlement was announced on May 20, 2026. "I am pleased my First Amendment rights have been vindicated," Bushart said. "The people's freedom to participate in civil discourse is crucial to a healthy democracy." That's a remarkably measured statement from a man who spent over a month in jail for something that never should have gotten him a knock on the door, let alone handcuffs.
Adam Steinbaugh, senior attorney with the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, didn't sugarcoat it either: "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." In the dark of night. Let that sink in. They came for him at night. Over a meme.
This is what happens when government officials decide their feelings matter more than the Constitution. A meme that hurt nobody, threatened nobody in any specific or credible way, got a retired cop thrown behind bars because the people with power didn't like the message. And when the whole thing collapsed — because of course it collapsed — the taxpayers of Perry County got stuck with an $835,000 bill.
Sheriff Weems and Mayor Carroll should be answering some very uncomfortable questions right now. Not just about why they thought jailing a man over a meme was appropriate law enforcement, but about why the residents of Perry County should be on the hook for their stupidity.
They put a man in jail for a meme. He walked out with $835,000 and his First Amendment rights intact. The only people who lost here are the taxpayers — and the officials who just proved exactly why the First Amendment exists in the first place.
