Former Cop Arrested For Not Being Sufficiently Reverential Of Charlie Kirk’s Corpse Scores $835K Lawsuit Settlement

from the whiny-ass-debate-me-bros dept

MAGA got itself a martyr when Charlie Kirk was killed. The “violent left,” etc. as they say. One of it’s own practiced what he preached and his life was ended prematurely by someone practicing what Kirk preached.

I mean, this is a direct quote of Charlie Kirk:

Kirk argued that the benefits of having guns in many American hands outweighed the costs. Gun deaths were inevitable in such a heavily armed society, he admitted, but the prevalence of firearms allowed citizens to “defend yourself against a tyrannical government”.

“I think it’s worth it,” he said. “I think it’s worth it 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’s rational.”

The most charitable reading of this quote suggests that Kirk has embraced Thomas Jefferson — “”The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants” — but decided the “patriots” and/or “tyrants” must be, occasionally, innocent people, including elementary school students.

The least charitable reading is this: Charlie Kirk doesn’t care how many of your kids are killed so long as he (and his fellow debate me bro grifters) still have access to firearms. And as for the “second amendment protects the other God-given rights), get the fuck out of here. The last time any of these God, Guns, and Gadsden flag motherfuckers ever went after the government, they did it to fully embrace tyranny while attempting to destroy democracy.

So, when someone says something pointed to say about Charlie Kirk’s live-by-the-gun, die-by-the-gun philosophy, they’re in the right (as in “correct,” rather than being part of the “right”).

Late last year, someone not sufficiently supportive of Kirk’s martyrdom got arrested. Somewhat surprisingly, this person was a former law enforcement officer, which didn’t put him beyond the reach of a current law enforcement official who was a big fan of Charlie Kirk. Perry County (Tennessee) sheriff Nick Weems took it upon himself to take offense on behalf of everyone in his jurisdiction and arrested former cop Larry Bushart for simply quoting Donald Trump in response to Charlie Kirk’s shooting:

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. 

Weems pretended that this post caused mass hysteria in Perry County, Tennessee. First, he claimed he was justified in arresting Larry Bushart because Bushart refused to take the post down. “What kind of person just says he don’t care?” asked the sheriff, who apparently thinks the First Amendment only applies to people who care what law enforcement officers say when they’re in the process of violating people’s rights.

Then he lied to everyone — something exposed by none other than Lexington PD officers. He later admitted investigators knew Bushart wasn’t referring to Perry County or its schools in his Facebook post, which meant the post couldn’t possibly hope to satisfy even the vague and expansive contours of a local law that’s supposed to curb school shootings by punishing online threats.

Sheriff Weems claimed “mass hysteria” was the result of Bushart’s post. A public records request to the Perry County School District for documents by FIRE (Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, which represented Bushart in this case) pertaining to this post was met with a “no related records” response, which strongly suggests no parent, student, teacher, or administrator thought Bushart’s post was some sort of threat against local schools or students.

The end result of Weems’ asinine attempt to punish someone for indirectly maligning Kirk’s cooling corpse? A sizable settlement that taxpayers might want to remember the next time Weems is up for election:

A Tennessee man who was jailed for 37 days over a Facebook post he shared after the killing of Charlie Kirk has agreed to a $835,000 settlement with the sheriff who detained him, his lawyers said on Wednesday.

[…]

In the posts, he shared memes that accused Mr. Kirk’s organization, Turning Point USA, of perpetrating hate and another that included past comments from President Trump about moving past a school shooting. The sheriff’s office in Perry County, Tenn., claimed that with those posts, he had threatened violence.

His bail was set at $2 million, and he remained in jail until the charge against him was dropped.

Check out that last sentence. Voters might also want to keep this in mind the next time local judges are up for election (or, if appointed, the people who appoint these judges are up for election).

Look, even if I didn’t think Charlie Kirk was a terrible person with reprehensible ideas/ideals, I’d still speak up for everyone’s right to treat his death with whatever level of respect they thought it deserved. “Too soon” is in the eye of the beholder, which definitely isn’t the objective approach needed to address cases involving personal expression.

Even if I thought Larry Bushart was extremely careless in his wording or was perhaps trying to tease out an inference that could conceivably be seen as “threatening,” there’s no excuse for what happened here.

“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,” Adam Steinbaugh, a senior attorney with the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, a free speech legal advocacy group that represents Mr. Bushart, said in a statement. “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.”

No law enforcement officer worth their paycheck would have engaged in this arrest. (And, indeed, it looks as though the first officers on the scene from the Lexington PD saw this as an unconstitutional attack on someone’s protected rights.) And no judge should have signed off on a $2 million bail request over a post only one person — that being Sheriff Weems — seemed to feel was illegal.

Bushart wins. Tennessee residents also win, but they’re stuck with the bill. Sheriff Weems loses, but unless he’s ousted from office, he’ll learn nothing from this experience, since this won’t be coming out of his own pocket. The First Amendment has been vindicated, but Sheriff Weems (and the people who support him) made it clear it will always be under attack so long as MAGA acolytes remain in positions of power.

Filed Under: 1st amendment, bogus arrest, censorship, charlie kirk, donald trump, free speech, gun violence, larry bushart, perry county, sheriff nick weems, tennessee