Tennessee officials will pay $835,000 to settle a lawsuit filed by a man who was jailed for more than a month over a Facebook post he made about the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk.
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.
Tennessee made no choices, because Tennessee isn’t a thinking self-aware entity capable of independent decision making.
Individuals made the choices so the punishement for the unlawfully use of force should be borne by the individuals who chose to make or supported those choices (often what in civilized countries is called “Abuse Of Power”), not dispersed over a massive group of people almost none of which made, supported or were in a position to stop, that unlawful use of force.
“Tennessee officials” aren’t paying shit. Tennessee taxpayers are paying for the officials’ fuckup. Perhaps it should be taken directly from the officials’ private accounts. Why punish taxpayers for the officials infringement on another taxpayer’s rights?
The officer who arrested him should pay for not refusing an unconstitutional arrest.
The police chief should pay for not slapping down such an arrest.
Any officers that were aware of it should pay for not acting to protect the man’s constitutional rights.
The DA and the judge the signed for any arrest warrant should pay for, again, blatantly ignoring the unconstituionality of this arrest warrant.
Hold the people who failed the system accountable so they don’t want to fuck up again. None of them give a shit and the taxpayers have to make this man whole rather than the people that harmed him. Contrarily, the taxpayers brought light to the case to try and protect the man.
American justice at work.
Well, the insurance the taxpayers paid the premiums for is paying out.
I’d love to see a law where if the intentional actions of a department results in X amount of settlement dollars paid out, it automatically triggers a flushing of current police leadership.
As is, there’s no real penalty except to the taxpayer.
At least with that system, there’s incentive for leadership to keep their officers in check, they’re care if their own jobs are on the line, and “was fired cuz we had to pay out millions” makes it hard to get hired a city over.
Cities won’t want someone who’s going to cost them money.
Cops won’t do what’s right because it’s right, so we have to give them a selfish reason to do the right thing. That goes for most people, it’s always best to explain why doing the right thing is right for selfish reasons.
Typically these cases take several years to a decade to work their way through so most often the person in charge when it happened isnt the same person in charge when it finishes. What we need is for actual criminal prosecutions to occur when police trample people’s constitutional rights. No more “paid leave” followed by a resignation or retirement that ends the investigation since they arent employees anymore.
No better way to teach a lesson to an American than to tell them that their actions and their beliefs is going to cost $835,000 … either the cost to them, their office, their organization, their tax payer, their government or to anyone … because in the long run, that $835,000 is going to hang around someone’s neck forever.
Man, I wish…
But there’s tons of examples to look into.
This money almost never comes out of police budgets, and their budgets still increase every year.
They feel zero pain from settlements. The people pay on person for what the cops did, and the cops keep doing it.
As long as that’s the system, it’s gonna keep happening
The charges they arrested this guy for were patently absurd to anyone who spent more than 5 seconds looking into it. In a Facebook discussion about Kirk’s assasination, he posted a quote from Trump about the Perry, Iowa school shooting, where Trump had said “We have to get over it”. They tried to charge him with making a terrorist threat against the local high school (Perry County, TN).
“it was understood locally to be a threat” my ass.
Exactly. They were never able to provide any examples of anyone who actually thought it was a threat. That was just the pretext they used to arrest and punish him extrajudicially. I’m sure it was just a coincidence that the wife of the chief of police was the one organizing the local vigil for Kirk.
post retirement job
That’s just a job …
IIRC this guy used to be a cop too, so they work long enough to ‘retire’ and collect their big pension and then get another job, often still in policing, so they can double dip.
Love it when they get paid to park next to a construction zone and just keep their lights on. 8 hours of paid chillax and it counts towards retirement
Honestly, if a cop with lights parked is what it takes to keep road workers safe, I’m fine paying for it. People drive like absolute distracted idiots and far too many road workers are injured or killed just doing their job keeping our roads in good shape.
I agree 100% but it still sounds like a cushy ass job, and I’m only commenting to make that pun.
Depending on the construction and the contracting, some of those police are on pay jobs (department gets compensated).
Other places leave police empty vehicles as a deterrent
Those are usually empty. They park the car and another cop brings them elsewhere
“Retired” cops often get cushy gigs from the precinct doing things like private investigation, which usually amounts to stuff like job site security from the driver’s seat of an SUV, or making daily angry phone calls to local school districts about trans kids.
Those damn trans kids. Always living their life checks notes without affecting my life at all in anyway
No matter what, the taxpayer pays. Even if they’re held accountable for their fascism, it’s still on us. How is that justice? For the man, yes, but those that did this to him face no consequences.
I’ve spoken to Charlie Kirk and he said " get out there and be the consequences you want to see!"
Well, no, he actually said “wharggglwgarggglegargg fuh.”
Which we all know means be the consequences you want to see etc etc.
Not enough. Wheres the public apology, where are the rolling heads? They got the settlement pass.
Apology? Lol, my dude. You’re talking about conservatives, American conservatives.
They wouldn’t apologize even if they were being flayed and burned repeatedly for all eternity in Hell.
Right now, as we speak, Charlie Kirk, in between screams, is probably still trying to debate why DEI is actually just white replacement.
Cuz assholes never apologize, never change their minds, and ultimately Charlie Kirk was cured of his fascism the only way fascism is ever cured.
I have no love for this retired pig either. ACAB and all that shit. But hey, anything that encourages pissing on Charlie Kirk’s grave, I’ll fucking take it.
They wouldn’t apologize even if they were being flayed and burned repeatedly for all eternity in Hell.
Not true. They will apologize (insincerely) if they think it will benefit them in some way.
That’s the problem with all these public settlements. Something bad enough to pay out nearly a million dollars happened, but somehow no one is at fault for it.
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
Ah OK. All questions answered.
Suffered a gross injustice in the US? It’ll be fine, you will be made whole. Just make sure you were a police officer.
Prime example of what’s that anti-weapinzation fund is going to be used for, right?
For less than a million dollars they’d do it a dozen times over just to make an example of people like that.
Absolute bargain for them compared to the chilling effects and satisfaction they got out of punishing this guy for a month for his speech. It should be 5 times as big.
The police aren’t paying, TN taxpayers are.
man i’m so jealous of this guy.
