Jonathan Turley, CSPAN

U.S. attorney and legal scholar Jonathan Turley said a free speech case is brewing in Tennessee over the arrest of a retired police officer for posting "anti-Charlie Kirk messages" on the Internet.

“Larry Bushart, 61, of Lexington, Tennessee, was arrested for threatening a mass shooting at a school, but the cited messages do not support such a claim. Indeed, his comments appear to be protected political speech under governing Supreme Court precedent,” said Turley. “Bushart is clearly one of the unhinged voices on the Internet who trolls and inflames others. At his arrest, even Bushart admitted that he is a bit of ‘an a——,’ but insisted that he is not a criminal. He appears correct on both counts.”

Bushart, a former cop with the Huntingdon Police Department, was arrested and charged Sept. 22 with making threats of mass violence after posting on a Perry County community Facebook group page. He is not scheduled for a preliminary and bond hearing until December 4, which Turley said is “troubling” considering his bond is set “at an astronomical $2 million.”

Perry County Sheriff Nick Weems accused Bushart of posting “hate memes” about Kirk’s death.

Bushart’s post consists of a meme depicting President Donald Trump saying “We have to get over it,” in reference to a direct quote Trump made after a January 2024 school shooting in Perry, Iowa that left one dead and seven wounded. Bushart’s photo is topped with the phrase "This seems relevant today.”

Weems said Bushart posted the picture “to indicate or make the audience think it was referencing our Perry High School,” which he claims “led teachers, parents and students to conclude [Bushart] was talking about a hypothetical shooting at our school.”

Bushart was later arrested on a charge of Threats of Mass Violence on School Property and Activities, a charge that could bring as much as six years in prison, if convicted.

But the Supreme Court has protected similar speech in the past, having sided with a draft protester claiming that, if drafted, “the first man I want to get in my sights is [President Lyndon Johnson].” The court insisted that it was not a “true threat” but rather “a kind of very crude offensive method of stating a political opposition to the President.”

Turley cites the Court ruling that “The speaker’s fear of mistaking whether a statement is a threat; his fear of the legal system getting that judgment wrong; his fear, in any event, of incurring legal costs — all those may lead him to swallow words that are in fact not true threats.”

And the argument of Bushart’s threat is spotty, even according to officers trying to explain it to him. Turley points to a video showing an officer telling “a confused Bushart” that he is being charged with: “Threatening Mass Violence at a School.”

“At a school?” Bushart responded.

The officer eventually said: “I ain’t got a clue. I just gotta do what I have to do.”

Turley said critics are seeing Bushart’s post as simply Bushart dismissing the killing of Kirk as something that we “should get over.”

“Bushart has a protected right to rail against Kirk and, in his words, be ‘an a——,’” Turley argued.

Read the full report at this link.