It appears that sharing something as innocuous as memes these days could be grounds for the police to arrest and detain you. Well, that seems to be the case for one man in Linden, Tennessee. The man merely shared some memes about a Donald Trump quote regarding school shooting incidents on a comment section, and he was swiftly arrested by the Perry County police and then charged with Threats of Mass Violence.
61-year-old Larry Bushary is the man in question, and he’s from Lexington, Tennessee. Recently, Bushart has been posting some anti-Charlie Kirk memes along with anti-Trump memes in the “What’s Happening in Perry County” Facebook page. For some reason, however, Perry County Sheriff Nick Weems and the rest of his law enforcement department deemed Bushart’s memes as a threat to school safety, particularly the one about mass school shootings, which quotes Trump saying, “We have to get over it.”
“One of the images posted by Mr. Bushart eluded to a hypothetical [school] shooting at a place called Perry High School. That message caused considerable concern within the community and we were asked to investigate,” claims Weems, transcript courtesy of WOPC Live. Other memes make fun of Charlie Kirk’s death, showing a Sopranos clip where Tony Soprano says, “Who gives a sh*t,” when told that Charlie Kirk died. A third meme Bushart shared was also a joke about Kirk and the release of the Epstein Files.
Regardless, Bushart was arrested on September 22 and taken into custody in a Perry County jail. The Sheriff’s department also charged Bushart with one count of Threats of Mass Violence on School Property. At the time of writing, there has been no information on Bushart’s bond, with the trial set for October 9.
Reactions Online Were Largely Puzzled at the Charge
Larry Bushart himself has notified people about the arrest using his Facebook account, and people in his comment section appear to be split. One side was celebrating his arrest while the other was making fun of the police for supposedly misunderstanding the meme. It’s not initially clear how the meme hints at a possible school shooting plan from Bushart, but Perry County Sheriff Nick Weems has reiterated that “statements made on social media can have consequences.”
As for the exact source of the Trump quote on the meme, it’s about Trump’s statement on the 2024 school shooting at Perry High School in Iowa. It just so happens that Perry County in Tennessee also has an identically named Perry High, and this, along with the reports from other Facebook users on the page in which Bushart posted the memes, led to the police assuming that Bushart had a hypothetical mass school shooting planned.
