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Larry Bushart Jr. was just freed from a Tennessee jail cell after spending more than a month behind bars 鈥� . 

The 61-year-old retiree and former cop 鈥� who had a penchant for posting provocative progressive memes that made him stand out in his deeply conservative community southwest of Nashville 鈥� was to shoot up a local school. 

The evidence, which the county鈥檚 elected sheriff used to hold Bushart in a cell on a $2 million bond until last week, is a meme accusing President Donald Trump of dismissing the lives lost in a 2024 school shooting in Perry, Iowa, while pushing punishment for critics of slain right-wing pundit Charlie Kirk.

The charges were dropped and Bushart was released from the Perry County Jail in Linden, Tennessee, only after Sheriff Nick Weems acknowledged in a TV interview that Weems initially claimed that Bushart鈥檚 post set off 鈥渕ass hysteria鈥� that he was plotting a shooting at the local Perry County High School. 

The high-profile arrest appears to be part of a broader crackdown by Republican lawmakers 鈥� including the Trump administration 鈥斅爋n Americans whose social media posts about Kirk鈥檚 killing聽they found to be offensive. Among them are in violation of the First Amendment for online posts about Kirk鈥檚 Sept. 10 death. Bushart鈥檚 case is an extreme example, civil rights advocates said, and may be the only one where someone has wound up in handcuffs. He

鈥淭his guy should never have been arrested in the first place, but the second that there was real scrutiny of the meme that he posted 鈥� and it was very apparent that he was not in any way suggesting that he intended to commit a school shooting or anything like that 鈥� he should have been released immediately,鈥� said Brian Hauss, an American Civil Liberties Union senior staff attorney who focuses on free speech issues and called Bushart鈥檚 arrest 鈥渁n absolute travesty.鈥� 

Bushart鈥檚 arrest calls attention to applying strict penalties for school shooting threats and mandating police officer involvement in campus threat assessments intended to ferret out students with violent plans before they act. The bipartisan laws, passed in the wake of the 2023 mass school shooting at a Christian elementary school in Nashville, have led to a wave of student arrests and have similarly become the subject of . 

The state鈥檚 new and 鈥渋ncredibly broad鈥� laws can be used as a 鈥渃onvenient tool,鈥� Hauss said, for law enforcement officials with 鈥減olitical grudges to settle.鈥� 

Weems, himself an avid Facebook user who warned after Kirk鈥檚 death that 鈥渆vil could be standing right beside you in the grocery store,鈥� didn鈥檛 respond to interview requests. Neither did Bushart nor the local school district. 

While Bushart鈥檚 school days are long behind him, his case is a prime example of why police shouldn鈥檛 be 鈥減art of the broader role of educators鈥� in scrutinizing students鈥� behaviors to distinguish an 鈥渙ff-the-cuff remark of a frustrated student鈥� from a threat of violence, said Dan Losen, a senior director at the National Center for Youth Law who has spent more than two decades researching school discipline policies and the so-called school-to-prison pipeline.  

鈥淥nce the police are involved, they鈥檙e entrenched,鈥� Losen said, adding that officers can make arrests even without the support of educators on threat assessment teams. While law enforcement should be called in threatening circumstances, he said there鈥檚 a greater risk for 鈥渓aw enforcement to abuse their authority鈥� if they鈥檙e regularly asked to evaluate student conduct through a policing mindset. 

鈥淭hey can, at any point, decide that a student is a threat,鈥� Losen said. 鈥淭hey can go after people that they don鈥檛 like 鈥� they can go after their kids.鈥�

Losen said he initially saw value in school-based threat assessments as 鈥渁 clear process鈥� to evaluate students鈥� conduct and react appropriately. In recent years, however, he鈥檚 come to believe the research supporting the model lacks rigor and that it鈥檚 led to a surge in unjust suspensions and arrests 鈥�

鈥業 don鈥檛 care, I want him arrested鈥�

In states across the country, police officers have become routinely involved in evaluating students鈥� behaviors and motives as members of formal campus-based behavioral threat assessment teams. School-based threat assessments have become mainstream, particularly in the aftermath of the 2018 mass school shooting in Parkland, Florida. Schools nationally have assembled teams of teachers, mental health officials, police and other campus adults to identify students who pose safety threats and intervene with counseling and other services 鈥� and sometimes arrests 鈥� before anyone commits violence. 

Such teams are used in 85% of schools across the U.S., by the nonprofit Learning Policy Institute. Forty-five states have policies that establish the teams in public schools, the report states, and 20 have laws requiring them. 

District leaders have also turned to technology for school safety, using artificial intelligence-powered surveillance tools to scan social media websites in search of posts that could spell danger. 

Threat assessments have prompted concerns from civil rights groups that the method could misidentify struggling students as future gunmen and unnecessarily push them into the juvenile justice system. School shootings are statistically rare yet student behaviors that are often factors in threat assessments 鈥� like alcohol use and a history of mental health issues 鈥� are exceedingly common.

In 2023, Tennessee lawmakers passed rules requiring every school to have threat assessment teams that included police officers. That same year, lawmakers established mandatory yearlong expulsions for students who make violent threats against schools. In 2024, lawmakers increased the penalty for threats against schools from a misdemeanor to a felony. Georgia and New Mexico have since . 

The changes have led to , according to reporting by The Tennessean. Last year, 518 students statewide were arrested under the new law, 71 of them between the ages of 7 and 11. Some of the arrests were preceded, the outlet reported, by ill-advised jokes and statements erroneously perceived as threats. 

In one case, a high school student was arrested for allegedly making a 鈥淗itler salute鈥� and, despite a lack of evidence, the principal said 鈥淚 don鈥檛 care, I want him arrested.鈥� The teen was reportedly taken into custody, strip-searched and placed in solitary confinement at the local juvenile jail. 

When speech becomes a 鈥榯rue threat鈥�

The rate of school shootings has surged in recent years, yet early interventions have received credit for saving lives in several instances. 

In September, the nonprofit Sandy Hook Promise 鈥� which was formed in the wake of the 2012 mass school shooting in Newtown, Connecticut, that left 20 first graders and six school staffers dead 鈥� boasted of .

A high school student reported to the Say Something Anonymous Reporting System “detailed threats on social media,鈥� to shoot up a local school complete with images of ammunition, a mapped-out attack plan and access to a gun, according to the nonprofit, which notified a local school district response team. The student who made the alleged threats was ultimately detained by the police. 

Sandy Hook Promise claims the incident is the 19th planned school shooting they鈥檝e prevented since 2018. School shootings are , a majority of whom leak their violent plans to people around them in advance, offering officials a window to act. 

Mo Canady, the executive director of the nonprofit National Association of School Resource Officers, said the police play a critical role in assessing school threats and preventing campus violence. Canady acknowledged that social media, in particular, 鈥渋s not an easy environment to navigate鈥� when trying to decipher whether someone鈥檚 speech constitutes a threat.

But the focus needs to be placed on keeping campuses safe, he said, rather than 鈥渂eing hyperfocused on, 鈥極h my gosh, am I violating someone鈥檚 First Amendment rights?鈥� 

鈥淧eople have a right to say what they want to say, but there are also consequences at times to what they say,鈥� Canady said. 鈥淔rom a behavioral threat assessment standpoint, I don鈥檛 think there’s ever an intent there to try to squish anyone’s First Amendment rights. That’s not what this is about.鈥�

In its new report on school-based threat assessments, the Learning Policy Institute concluded that the approach appears effective in preventing violence at schools where it鈥檚 implemented with high fidelity and where educators receive instruction from expert trainers. In the absence of adequate staff and training, educators often turn to suspensions, expulsions and arrests to handle students who are viewed as problematic. 

Poorly designed assessments have led to concerns they 鈥渕ay target and potentially traumatize the most vulnerable students, including through the exclusion and criminalization of historically marginalized students.鈥� 

It also called for additional research into threat assessments, noting that much of the existing evidence supporting them comes from a team of University of Virginia researchers who developed a model used in schools nationwide. In one 2021 study, resulted in low student disciplinary rates and didn鈥檛 exhibit racial disparities in outcomes. 

Psychologist Dewey Cornell, the principal author of the university鈥檚 Comprehensive School Threat Assessment Guidelines, declined an interview request, but argued that First Amendment implications were rare.

鈥淔ree speech objections to threat assessment don鈥檛 come up very often in school threat settings,鈥� Cornell wrote 蜜桃影视 in an email. 鈥淭here is case law on how threats are excluded from free speech protections.鈥� 

The Supreme Court has set a high bar for what constitutes a 鈥渢rue threat,鈥� and the Cato Institute, the libertarian think tank, said Bushart鈥檚 Facebook post fell . In a 1969 Supreme Court opinion, the group noted, the nation鈥檚 top court 鈥渕ade it crystal clear that only true threats are exempt from the freedom of speech 鈥� not hyperbole and political bombast.鈥�

 In 2023, the Supreme Court further strengthened First Amendment protections, finding someone can only make a 鈥渢rue threat鈥� if they knowingly disregard a 鈥渟ubstantial risk鈥� that their speech would cause harm. 

In Bushart鈥檚 case, it doesn鈥檛 matter whether the sheriff鈥檚 actions were the result of a misunderstanding about the intent behind the Facebook post or an effort to censor speech he found objectionable, the ACLU鈥檚 Hauss said. The monthlong confinement violated the Tennessee citizen鈥檚 constitutional rights. 

Hauss said he understands 鈥渢he very serious security concerns when it comes to school shootings.鈥� But campus safety matters, he said, 鈥渟hould not be left up to people who can鈥檛 distinguish political speech from threats of violence.鈥�

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