A retired Tennessee law enforcement officer who was jailed for more than a month over a Facebook post he made after the assassination of Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk has agreed to a $835,000 settlement.
“Larry Bushart was arrested in September 2025 and thrown in jail after posting a meme with the text ‘We have to get over it’ next to an image of Trump,” Collin Rugg wrote.
“He was originally charged with threatening mass violence, but the district attorney declined to pursue the charges. Bushart will now get $835,000 from the county in exchange for dismissing his complaint,” he continued.
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NEW: Former Tennessee police officer who was jailed for posting a meme after the assassination of Charlie Kirk has been awarded more than $800,000.
Larry Bushart was arrested in September 2025 and thrown in jail after posting a meme with the text “We have to get over it” next to… pic.twitter.com/ja5miy5byn
— Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) May 20, 2026
NBC News explained further:
While many people across the U.S. lost their jobs over social media comments about Kirk’s death, Larry Bushart’s case stood out as a rare instance in which such online speech led to criminal prosecution. The 61-year-old retired police officer spent 37 days behind bars before authorities dropped the felony charge against him in October.
During his time in jail, Bushart lost his postretirement job and missed his wedding anniversary and the birth of his granddaughter, according to a federal lawsuit Bushart filed in December against Perry County, its sheriff and the investigator who obtained the arrest warrant.
“I am pleased my First Amendment rights have been vindicated,” Bushart said in a statement announcing the settlement Wednesday. “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.”
Perry County Mayor John Carroll did not immediately respond to a Wednesday message left with his office seeking an interview.
Bushart was arrested in September after he refused to take down Facebook memes that joked about Kirk’s killing, which had prompted an outpouring of grief among conservatives, including in Perry County, which is near Bushart’s home and which held a candlelight vigil.
The meme Bushart posted that prompted his arrest read: “This seems relevant today…” and featured President Donald Trump and the words, “We have to get over it.” That quote, the meme explained, was said by Trump in 2024 after a school shooting at Iowa’s Perry High School.
“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,” said Adam Steinbaugh, a senior attorney with the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, according to The New York Times.
“We’re pleased that Larry has been compensated for this injustice, but local law enforcement never should have forced him to endure this ordeal in the first place,” Steinbaugh added.
A retired police officer won a huge settlement from the Tennessee officials who had a hand in jailing him for 37 days after he posted a meme making light of Charlie Kirk’s assassination https://t.co/8tILzeefBi 🔗 pic.twitter.com/Xh19qMYiv9
— Daily Mail US (@Daily_MailUS) May 20, 2026
More from The New York Times:
Mr. Bushart filed a federal lawsuit in December against Nick Weems, the sheriff in Perry County, asserting that sheriff’s department had willfully misinterpreted a post that Mr. Bushart made on a community Facebook group’s page as threatening violence, and had then infringed on his constitutional rights. The settlement was reached with the sheriff and local government in Perry County.
Mr. Weems did not respond to a request for comment.
In an interview last year after his release, Mr. Bushart — a rare outspoken progressive in his deeply conservative pocket of central Tennessee — described himself as a “Facebook warrior” who relished confronting acquaintances and strangers alike online over their political opinions.
Like many, he jumped into the social media fray after Mr. Kirk was killed at an event at a university in Utah. He noticed that a group in Perry County, about 30 miles from his home, was organizing a prayer vigil to memorialize Mr. Kirk, and he posted a flurry of memes created by others on a community Facebook page advertising the event.
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