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Man sues cops who jailed him for 37 days for trolling a Charlie Kirk vigil (arstechnica.com)

submitted 2 weeks ago by technocrit@lemmy.dbzer0.com to c/news@hexbear.net

4 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Larry Bushart, a man who was jailed for 37 days for reposting a Trump meme, has now sued the cops who allegedly schemed to keep him imprisoned for as long as possible simply because they disagreed with his point of view.

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[–] SerLava@hexbear.net 41 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (1 children)

This story is crazy. What you have to understand is that the cops were simply reading the room for those first few days after Kirk got shot.

The right wing has declared their intention to jail anyone arbitrarily for speech by blatantly lying that a "violent threat" was made, because that is the only real legal framework for arresting people over speech. Fascists usually adhere to a sort of pantomime of the preexisting liberal legal framework.

The police here couldn't even identify what the threat was, but they thought they wouldn't need to. They thought, like many did on all sides of the political world, that the Kirk shooting was going to be our Reichstag fire. Then it fizzled out completely. These cops thought they were on the bleeding edge of a roundup of political opposition, but now they're caught holding the bag and have no way to even begin to rationalize this arrest.

It's important that these cops see legal punishment on a personal level.

[–] Beaver@hexbear.net 19 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

It's important that these cops see legal punishment on a personal level.

My normie lib friends and family are absolutely foaming at the mouth for mass arrests if "their team" wins back power. I think a lot of it is actually coming from the same place as liberal freakouts about disorder and crime in their communities - the open criminality and impunity in which agents of the government are acting is triggering a lot of the same neurons. IMO explains a lot about why Trump's popularity absolutely collapsed among suburbanites, and faster than in his less obviously criminal and disordered first term.

[–] PKMKII@hexbear.net 28 points 2 weeks ago

To get Bushart jailed, Weems allegedly collaborated with an investigator, Jason Morrow, to omit a key detail from the affidavit that served as the entire basis of his arrest. Morrow supposedly left out the fact that the meme referred to a 2024 school shooting, allegedly helping Weems manufacture probable cause. Including that detail would’ve made Bushart’s arrest less likely, as the reviewing magistrate—a nonlawyer who has no legal education—would’ve possibly understood that cops were trying to arrest Bushart for protected speech, his complaint said.

As much as the justice system in urban areas can be systematically brutal, there’s something uniquely fucked up about the small town “he ain’t got no learnin’ to run a court, but he’s good folk” version of it.

[–] LeeeroooyJeeenkiiins@hexbear.net 20 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

he looks kinda old and i'm already feeling my body fail me with age and i'm only in my 30s so maybe i shouldn't judge but idk if I were imprisoned for even half that long "suing" wouldn't be in my plans unless it were with a fully automatic suing machine and hollow point lawsuits