Do read this New York Times story [gift link]about Larry Bushart, a progressive Facebook addict who was arrested and spent 37 days on jail after being arrested on the theory that a meme he posted (that he didn’t create) was a “true threat” and thus a felony. He was held on a two-million dollar bond. I mentioned the case last November, but had limited information then.
Believe it or not—I can barely believe it—the meme above is what got Bushart arrested! Eventually the charges were dropped, but understandably, the 61-year-old retired police officer isn’t posting memes on Facebook any more, and is hesitant to express his contrarian opinions on social media. In a real sense, his free speech has been “chilled” by state action…state action that was unethical, illegal, an abuse of discretion and power, and mind-numbingly stupid. It is also a cautionary tale.
Observations:
Ethics Alarms 
He was not arrested by the Trump administration.
He was arrested DURING the Trump administration by evil conservative law enforcement. The public is not that discerning, ME.
Not a lawyer here, as I have said, but wouldn’t a civil lawsuit against the county, as opposed to against the sheriff personally, help to restrain the excesses of immunity? If a county had to pay big bucks, they might exercise more supervision over those they employ and caution over those they hire.
An aside or two:
It is sad that your late wife was driven to distraction by a family member’s ‘Bushartisms’. I have a dear relative who busharts (is that a legitimate verb?) regularly. I have unfollowed her on social media. When we’re together, I only respond to a discussion of issues and not to the proponents. Two persons, one with TDS and one with TAKS, can find agreement that way if the acronyms aren’t all-controlling.
Also, the NYT article reminds me of what I see routinely in The Washington Post — the practice by ‘reporters’ to write and get published mini-novellas. Often, the lede is buried and it takes an inordinate number of words to get to the meat of the story. My long-ago speed-reading instruction kicks in, in lieu of the TLDR impulse.
Boy, I agree wildly with that last observation. What happened to the classic news story template?
It started when Sgt. Joe “All we know are the facts, ma’am” Friday faded from the scene.
Or, more to the point, when facts conflict with belief, it becomes necessary to use story-telling to engage the reader.
As drummed into my head by a formidable English teacher long ago(along with other rules of composition) an article can only be written in news article style (the first paragraph is a repeat of, and a fleshing out of the headline and nothing more) if it’s a news article, no fluff or opinion allowed. If you’re reading an article which does not do this, it’s not news but something else. The hunt-for-the-lede type article has propaganda/fluff/opinion attached which disqualifies it as news, and so it cannot be written as such.
Case in point (one of the most egregious examples I can recall off the top of my head) was on a Chicago newspaper’s website. ‘Trump’s drone strikes surpass Obama’s’. I thought ‘That would take some doing’ and decided to read the article. Several paragraphs in after a lot of blabber (beginning with ‘If I gave you a pop quiz on recent current events’ and going on to mention Harry and Meghan and then onto a pop quiz on the drone program) was the list of countries droned and a total of 176 strikes. Thing is, they left off a country or two and cherry-picked to make the numbers higher for Trump. Any article that makes you look for the lede is likely faked somehow. (Obama’s drone strike numbers were over 500, by the way).
I think it’s misleading to state he was arrested solely for the above image meme, as there’s addadditional missing context.
If memory serves, he posted it as a reply to an announcement of future gathering that also had Perry in the name, and stated he hoped they’d get a similar crass eulogy.
Multiple organizers felt this was a threat to their own rights of lawful assembly. That doesn’t mean i think the arrest is justified–but it did justify contact and observation. Both he and the Florida man who was arrested simply for wearing body armor in the vicinity of a politician at a parade were unjustly arrested.
looked, I can’t find any images of other comments he had supposedly made to the post like I had seen before. All I can find that’s verifiable is what’s in the arrest affidavit, the words “This seems relevant today…” alongside the meme.
As crass and gross such posts are to a candlelight vigil for a public assassination, it doesn’t rise to the level of a credible threat that the affidavit (signed by a judge) says it is.
A couple of his other memes posted to that vigil post can be seen here:
https://wopclive.com/local-news/808311
The arresting documents are woefully incomplete. It’s true he was arrested for the pictured meme, but he also flooded the post with memes including stills featuring Kirk’s gushing neck, conspiracy theories about TPUSA funding, Paul Pelosi’s hammer attack and more.
He truly is an asshole. I still can’t find the whole context of the Facebook post, but did find one woman expressing concern that he’d show up and “cause trouble” at the vigil.
None of that is even close to criminal conduct. The assholes are the officials that had him arrested and jailed, and the judge who set bail. But you know that.
Yup.
The TN law itself is horrible too. It legislates a misdemeanor crime to have knowledge of a meme that could be construed as a threat yet not reporting such meme to the authorities. No distinction to who is a mandatory reporter.