LEXINGTON, Tenn. (WTVF) — Day after day, Larry Bushart sat behind bars in rural Perry County, Tennessee – all for posting a meme that quoted President Donald Trump’s reaction to a school shooting.
He lost his post-retirement job, and he missed the anniversary of his marriage to wife Leanne. He missed out on the celebration of the birth of a grandchild. And he almost missed his youngest son taking his oath as a lawyer.
On and on it went – for 37 days – and yet Bushart insists he never lost hope.
“No,” he told me, “but I vented and she caught a lot of hell.” He gestured toward Leanne. “You know, "Get me the hell out!' It was every day, you know, 'Get me out!'"
A lawyer warned them that, in Perry County, Larry’s incarceration on a $2 million bond could last months, perhaps as long as a year.
“It was every day – get me out!" Leanne agreed.
Finally, last October, my investigation of Larry’s case led to him being set free. And, after the Busharts just agreed to an $835,000 settlement with Perry County for violating Larry’s civil rights, they were insistent about granting me their first interview.
For me, the conversation was an affirmation of the power of real journalism. Freeing a wrongly accused person is one of the best imaginable parts of the job.
"I have told people more than once if it wasn't for Phil Williams, I don't know that he would be out today,” Leanne told me.
And Larry agreed. “It did not end the way they wanted or intended it to end – certainly not."
Larry, a former police officer and a one-time Reagan Republican, is one of the rare liberals in a heavily conservative part of the state – and he admits he’s a bit of a keyboard warrior.
"She wanted me to get off Facebook,” Larry recalled, repeating the words of his wife: “’You promised you'd get off Facebook.' Well, 2020 came, and a president mishandled COVID."
Then, after Charlie Kirk’s murder last year, he posted a meme quoting President Trump who said "we have to get over it" – the day after a shooting at Perry High School in Iowa. The meme included the caption: "This seems relevant today."
At Perry County High School in Tennessee, some people supposedly took that meme as a threat to shoot up their school.
Larry’s local police paid him a visit at the request of the Perry County Sheriff’s Office.
"They said that something was insinuating violence,” the officer told him.
"No, it wasn't,” Bushart replied. "I'm not going to take it down. Go look!"
"I don't care,” the officer insisted. “This ain't got nothing to do with me."
That night, police came back with an arrest warrant that had been issued out of Perry County.
"This is what they charged you with – threatening mass violence at a school," an officer told him when taken for booking.
Larry exclaimed, "At a school?"
I had seen the bodycam video and asked Larry, “What was your thought when you heard that?"
"I thought, ‘Are these people crazy?’ – and that's being polite," he said.
Eventually, Larry Bushart was taken before General Sessions Judge Katerina Moore.
"When he went for his arraignment, the assistant DA asked for a $100,000 bond," Leanne recalled. “But when the judge, she said, no, $2 million."
Unable to make that bond, Bushart waited behind bars.
His case was picked up by the national online publication The Intercept, which published it under the headline: “The Absurd Prosecution of a Man Who Posted a Charlie Kirk Meme.”
“She's telling me, ‘You've become a big thing. My phone's blown up – Newsweek, Time and whomever. This story is all over the U.S. actually. It's even gone global,” Larry remembered.
“Wow, and I'm thinking that's a good thing. We're gonna persevere.”
Still, nothing changed.
Then, when I sat down with Perry County Sheriff Nick Weems, he admitted Larry Bushart not arrested because investigators thought it was a real threat. Instead, it was based on how some people in Perry County wrongly interpreted the meme.
"But you also knew this was an existing meme that was already out there on the Internet,” I pressed.
"Correct," Weems admitted.
"So, it's clear that he's not talking about Perry County High School."
"We knew,” the sheriff acknowledged. “The public did not know."
Larry's attorney called the next day to tell Leanne about the interview.
"And I was like, 'Really? He said that on national television?' And Josh said, ‘He'll be out in 30 minutes."
After 37 days in jail, all charges against Bushart were dropped.
Sitting down with the Busharts, I showed them the reaction on social media to Larry’s $835,000 settlement.
“Here's my favorite,” I said, showing them a comment on my Facebook page: “I was hoping he would hold out for a name change from Perry County to Larry County."
Larry seemed to contemplate the ring of it – “Larry County, hmm” – as his wife laughed.
Even now, Larry still has the same keyboard-warrior instincts.
"You should receive a journalism award,” he told me, adding: “But if you receive one, you’ll probably have to surrender it to Trump. He would think it was his journalism award."
Still, he grew more pensive when my photojournalist colleague Bryan Staples asked a most poignant question: "Was it all worth it?"
"I don't know. I want to say yes,” Larry answered. “I want to believe it was but, you know, we got lucky we're where we are right now.”
He continued, “And all of you can treat me as the big hero. I'm just a guy that liked to play on Facebook – and needed some hobbies."
Larry was represented in his case by the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression.
“It’s in times of turmoil and heightened tensions that our national commitment to free speech is tested the most,” FIRE staff attorney Cary Davis said in a statement. “When government officials fail that test, the Constitution exists to hold them accountable.”
He added, “Our hope is that Larry’s settlement sends a message to law enforcement across the country: Respect the First Amendment today, or be prepared to pay the price tomorrow.”
As I prepared to leave the Busharts, I asked for a photo.
After all, these are the days you want to remember.
