A Tennessee man who’d been jailed for posting a meme on a Facebook thread about the shooting of Charlie Kirk was freed Wednesday, after the 32nd District Attorney’s Office suddenly dropped all charges.
Larry Bushart, 61, had been jailed since Sept. 21 for the post, which quoted President Donald Trump telling supporters “we have to get over it” in response to a shooting at a high school in Perry, Iowa, in 2024.
“This seems relevant today,” Bushart wrote atop the meme. He then posted it to a Perry County, Tennessee, Facebook thread whose participants were organizing a vigil for Kirk, a right-wing influencer who was fatally shot at a college event in September.
Noting the similarity in names between Perry, Iowa, and Tennessee’s Perry County, members of the group reported Bushart to authorities for threatening the local high school.
Perry County Sheriff Nick Weems agreed with their assessment.
