“In America, we do not jail people for political speech.” 

That’s the first line of a lawsuit filed Wednesday against Tennessee law enforcement officials who arrested a man for a social media post following Charlie Kirk’s assassination in September. 

Larry Bushart’s 37 days behind bars before his baseless charge was dropped, however, show that we do, in fact, do this in America. 

But his civil action raises the question of what consequences, if any, there will be for that violation of American laws and values, which are being tested after the popular conservative commentator’s death with reprisals against people for speaking about the tragedy in ways that some powerful people don’t like. 

Bushart is a retired law enforcement officer in Lexington, Tennessee. He posted a series of political memes on Facebook under a post about a vigil for Kirk in nearby Perry County, Tennessee. One of them quoted a statement that President Donald Trump made after an Iowa school shooting the year before in which Trump said, “We have to get over it.” Bushart wrote over that statement: “This seems relevant today…” 

Trump’s statement was about a shooting at Perry High School in Iowa (not Tennessee). Bushart’s suit said that Perry County Sheriff Nick Weems knew the meme was about an Iowa school but still “publicly claimed it might have caused ‘mass hysteria’ if interpreted as a prediction of what President Trump might say after a hypothetical shooting at Perry County High School.” Weems directed Bushart’s arrest, and the former lawman was jailed on a $2 million bond he couldn’t afford, based on the false claims by Weems and his investigator, Jason Morrow, that Bushart had threatened mass violence at a school. 

“It is clearly established that the First Amendment prohibits government officials from arresting people for protected political speech,” Bushart’s lawyers wrote in his complaint, explaining that he “brings this action to vindicate his constitutional rights and to deter Sheriff Weems, Investigator Morrow, and similarly situated officials from future misconduct.” The suit, which alleges violations of the First and Fourth Amendments, is against Perry County, Weems and Morrow, who will have an opportunity to respond in court. 

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