Man jailed in Tennessee after posting meme deriding Trump following Charlie Kirk’s death

Claim:

In the fall of 2025, authorities arrested a man in Tennessee after he posted a meme deriding U.S. President Donald Trump following the assassination of conservative commentator Charlie Kirk.

Rating:

In the fall of 2025, rumors swirled that a man was in jail in Tennessee for posting a meme deriding U.S. President Donald Trump in the wake of the death of Charlie Kirk, the conservative co-founder of Turning Point USA who was shot and killed in Utah in September as he spoke to a crowd.

For example, the Facebook page of Occupy Democrats posted the rumor, referring to the man as Larry Bushart and saying he had been arrested after posting “only political commentary” (archived):

(Facebook page Occupy Democrats)

The post had gained 23,000 reactions and 4,700 comments as of this writing. The claim further spread on Facebook and Reddit.

The claim is true. A review of arrest records (archived) of Perry County, Tennessee, a telephone conversation with Bushart’s son and another with Adam Steinbaugh, an attorney at the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) who has been following the case, revealed the man had indeed been arrested in late September 2025 for posting a meme. 

Snopes also reached out to Nick Weems, the sheriff in Perry County, Joshua Phillips, Bushart’s lawyer, and Perry County District Attorney Hans Schwendimann. We await a response. 

On Sept. 22, 2025, Bushart was booked into jail by the Perry County Sheriff’s Office on suspicion of making “Threats of mass violence on school property and activities” and charged with the crime. The booking came hours after Bushart posted a meme on the Facebook group What’s Happening in Perry County, according to the news website The Intercept, which identified Bushart as a former police officer and sheriff’s deputy. 

Snopes could not review what Bushart posted there as the group is private, but Weems later confirmed on camera for local network News Channel 5 that the meme that led to Bushart’s arrest showed a photograph of then-presidential candidate Trump and quoted him as saying “We have to get over it” hours after the Perry High School mass shooting in Iowa in early January 2024. Bushart had reportedly posted this in a thread about the memorial for Kirk. 

A screen capture of Bushart’s post circulated widely, with Bushart’s caption reading, “This seems relevant today…”:

(Facebook user Larry Bushart)

This was the same image posted by Everytown, the group that advocates for more gun control, in January 2024 (archived):

The post came after Bushart reportedly posted many memes with a left-leaning bent about Kirk’s death on the local Facebook group. He did so as well on his personal Facebook page. The last meme he posted on his page was on Sept. 21, 2025, before he was arrested.

In the Oct. 28, 2025, News Channel 5 televised report, Weems identified this as the meme, saying it caused alarm among Perry County residents because it referred to the Perry High School mass shooting. However, the shooting occurred in Perry, Iowa, in 2024, not in Perry County, Tennessee.

On Oct. 29, the district attorney’s office dropped the criminal charge against Bushart, according to the Nashville Tennessean and local news outlet WKRN. He reportedly was released from jail after being held on a $2 million bond since his arrest.