Tennessee
Felony dropped after man spent a month in jail for Charlie Kirk post
Authorities in Tennessee have dropped a felony charge against a man who was jailed for more than a month over a Facebook post he made about the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk.
Whereas many people across the U.S. lost their jobs over social media comments about Kirk’s death, Larry Bushart’s case stood out as one of the few instances where such online speech has led to criminal prosecution.
His arrest — on a charge of threatening mass violence at a school — alarmed free speech advocates, who said Perry County Sheriff Nick Weems had targeted Bushart because of his political views. Bushart was released Wednesday after prosecutors sought to dismiss the charge.
Bushart, a 61-year-old former law enforcement officer, had posted numerous memes on Facebook making light of Kirk’s killing.
The one that got Bushart arrested was a meme featuring President Donald Trump and the words, “We have to get over it.” That quote, the meme explained, was said by Trump last year after a school shooting at Iowa’s Perry High School.
Posting the meme, Bushart wrote: “This seems relevant today...”
Weems told news outlets that most of Bushart’s “hate memes” were lawful free speech, but residents were alarmed by the school shooting post, thinking Bushart was threatening the local Perry County High School, even though Weems said he knew the meme was referencing a school in Iowa.
“Investigators believe Bushart was fully aware of the fear his post would cause and intentionally sought to create hysteria within the community,” Weems said in a statement to The Tennessean last month.
He said Bushart was arrested after refusing to delete the post. His bail was set at $2 million.
Bushart spent more than five weeks in jail before being released. Neither Weems nor Hans Schwendimann, the local district attorney, immediately responded to requests for comment on why the charge was dropped.
Virginia
Teacher who was shot by 6-year-old student says she thought she’d died
A former Virginia teacher who was shot by a 6-year-old student in her classroom in 2023 testified Thursday that she thought she had died that day.
Abby Zwerner testified in her $40 million lawsuit filed against a former assistant principal who is accused of ignoring multiple warnings that the student had a gun.
Zwerner was shot in the hand and chest in January 2023 as she sat at a reading table in her first-grade classroom at Richneck Elementary School in Newport News. Zwerner spent nearly two weeks in the hospital, required six surgeries and does not have the full use of her left hand. A bullet remains in her chest.
“I thought I had died. I thought I was either on my way to heaven or in heaven,” Zwerner testified.
The shooting sent shock waves through the military shipbuilding community and the country, with many wondering how a child so young could access a gun and shoot his teacher.
Zwerner no longer works for the school district and has said she has no plans to teach again. It was revealed in court Wednesday that she has become a licensed cosmetologist.
Former assistant principal Ebony Parker is accused of failing to act after several people voiced concerns to her in the hours before the shooting that the student had taken a gun to school. Parker is the only defendant in the lawsuit. A judge previously dismissed the district’s superintendent and the school principal.
Parker faces a separate criminal trial next month on eight counts of felony child neglect. Each of the counts is punishable by up to five years in prison upon a conviction.
The student’s mother was sentenced to nearly four years in prison for felony child neglect and federal weapons charges. Her son told authorities he got his mother’s handgun by climbing onto a drawer to reach the top of a dresser, where the firearm was in his mom’s purse.
California
Man sentenced to 146 years for overdose deaths of women dumped at hospitals
LOS ANGELES (AP) — A Beverly Hills man has been sentenced to 146 years to life in prison for the drug overdose deaths of two women who were dumped at two hospitals in Southern California, prosecutors said.
David Brian Pearce, 42, was convicted in February of first-degree murder for the deaths of Christy Giles and Hilda Marcela Cabrales-Arzola, who overdosed on fentanyl. Prosecutors said Pearce supplied them with the drug.
Pearce was also found guilty of crimes against a series of women between 2007 and 2021, including sodomy and rape of an unconscious or sleeping victim.
He was sentenced Wednesday. An email sent to Pearce’s lawyer was not immediately returned Thursday.
“This sentence delivers long-awaited justice for Ms. Cabrales-Arzola, Ms. Giles, and the courageous sexual assault victims who came forward and testified,” Los Angeles County District Attorney Nathan Hochman said in a statement.
Pearce’s co-defendant, 46-year-old Brant Osborn, is scheduled for a pretrial appointment on Nov. 18. After a mistrial in February, Osborn will likely face a second trial on two counts of accessory to murder after the fact.
Pearce was arrested in December 2021 in connection with the deaths a month earlier of Giles, a model, and her friend, Cabrales-Arzola, an architect.
Giles and Cabrales-Arzola had attended an East Los Angeles warehouse party, after which they went to Pearce’s Beverly Hills townhouse.
Giles was found dead outside Southern California Hospital in Culver City after masked men in a car with no license plates dropped her there, police said.
Cabrales-Arzola was left at Kaiser Permanente West Los Angeles Hospital, where she died 11 days later after being removed from life support.
Tennessee
Media coalition sues prison officials to get more access to executions
A coalition of news organizations including The Associated Press is suing Tennessee’s top prisons official and a warden, alleging state execution protocols unconstitutionally limit the media’s access and hamper thorough and accurate reporting.
Currently, reporters witnessing lethal injections do not see the entire process. The coalition argues the protocols violate “the public and press’s statutory and constitutional rights to witness the entirety of executions conducted by the Tennessee Department of Correction, from the time the condemned enters the execution chamber until after the condemned is declared dead.”
They’re seeking a judgment that the protocols are unconstitutional and an injunction to allow the press to see the full execution process.
“This lack of access has limited the public’s ability to obtain information from independent observers about execution proceedings in Tennessee,” the lawsuit says.
The lawsuit, filed in Davidson County Chancery Court in Nashville, names as defendants Kenneth Nelsen, warden of Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville that houses Tennessee’s execution chamber, and Frank Strada, commissioner of the Tennessee Department of Correction.
A department spokesperson said Wednesday that it does not comment on pending litigation. Nelsen’s office referred a reporter to the department.
During executions, media members begin seeing what happens once the condemned person is already strapped to a gurney and hooked up to IV lines. They don’t know at which precise moment the injections begin and those administering the injections are in a separate room.
The protocol says that after the syringes of saline and pentobarbital are administered, a team leader signals to the warden and a five-minute waiting period begins. After that period, the blinds are closed, the camera is turned off and then the doctor comes in to determine if the person is dead. If that is the case, the warden announces on the intercom system that the sentence was carried out and witnesses are directed to exit.
The lawsuit says the First Amendment of the U.S. and Tennessee Constitutions guarantee the public’s right to witness the entirety of executions. Tennessee law spells out specific categories of witnesses entitled to be present at executions, such as seven members of the news media.
The lawsuit cited the August execution of Byron Black, during which curtains in the witness room were only open for 10 minutes.
The Nashville Banner’s reporting on Black’s death said that according to his attorney, medical personnel had trouble finding veins in his arms, which led to a puddle of blood on his right side. The attorney said it took 10 minutes just for the tubes to be attached.
The lawsuit presents the corrections department’s log of Black’s execution. The lawsuit points out that the media was only able to see when the warden ordered the blinds open and the closed-circuit TV activated; when the warden asked Black if he had any last comments; the completion of the lethal injection process; and the closing of the blinds and deactivation of the closed circuit TV.
The camera and closed circuit TV are viewed by the execution team, not media witnesses.
The lawsuit states that “media witnesses had no access to that stage of the proceeding to independently report on it, leaving the public with no account from a neutral observer.”
In addition to AP, the media coalition includes Gannett Co., Inc.; Nashville Public Media, Inc.; Nashville Public Radio; Scripps Media, Inc.; Six Rivers Media, LLC; and TEGNA INC.
California
UCLA sued by Pasadena, Rose Bowl official over moving games to SoFi Stadium
LOS ANGELES (AP) — The city of Pasadena, California, and the Rose Bowl Operating Company have sued UCLA for allegedly trying to move its college football games from one of the sport’s most iconic stadiums to the much newer SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, California, the Los Angeles Times reported Wednesday.
According to the Times, the suit accuses UCLA of “profoundly” betraying its trust by attempting to relocate its home games from the facility the Bruins have called home for 43 years to the home of the NFL’s Los Angeles Rams and Los Angeles Chargers.
UCLA’s current lease runs through 2044. But the stadium is 26 miles from campus, and the Bruins have struggled with attendance in recent years. This season, UCLA’s average attendance for its four home games is roughly 35,000.
SoFi Stadium opened in September 2020, is about 12 miles from UCLA’s campus and has a capacity of 70,240.
“This lawsuit arises in an era when money too often eclipses meaning and the pursuit of profit threatens to erase the very traditions that breathe life into institutions,” the suit claims. “Some commitments are too fundamental to be traded away.”
UCLA has undergone several major changes over the past two seasons. It joined Southern California, Washington and Oregon in leaving their longtime conference home, the Pac-12, for the Big Ten in 2024.
Felony dropped after man spent a month in jail for Charlie Kirk post
Authorities in Tennessee have dropped a felony charge against a man who was jailed for more than a month over a Facebook post he made about the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk.
Whereas many people across the U.S. lost their jobs over social media comments about Kirk’s death, Larry Bushart’s case stood out as one of the few instances where such online speech has led to criminal prosecution.
His arrest — on a charge of threatening mass violence at a school — alarmed free speech advocates, who said Perry County Sheriff Nick Weems had targeted Bushart because of his political views. Bushart was released Wednesday after prosecutors sought to dismiss the charge.
Bushart, a 61-year-old former law enforcement officer, had posted numerous memes on Facebook making light of Kirk’s killing.
The one that got Bushart arrested was a meme featuring President Donald Trump and the words, “We have to get over it.” That quote, the meme explained, was said by Trump last year after a school shooting at Iowa’s Perry High School.
Posting the meme, Bushart wrote: “This seems relevant today...”
Weems told news outlets that most of Bushart’s “hate memes” were lawful free speech, but residents were alarmed by the school shooting post, thinking Bushart was threatening the local Perry County High School, even though Weems said he knew the meme was referencing a school in Iowa.
“Investigators believe Bushart was fully aware of the fear his post would cause and intentionally sought to create hysteria within the community,” Weems said in a statement to The Tennessean last month.
He said Bushart was arrested after refusing to delete the post. His bail was set at $2 million.
Bushart spent more than five weeks in jail before being released. Neither Weems nor Hans Schwendimann, the local district attorney, immediately responded to requests for comment on why the charge was dropped.
Virginia
Teacher who was shot by 6-year-old student says she thought she’d died
A former Virginia teacher who was shot by a 6-year-old student in her classroom in 2023 testified Thursday that she thought she had died that day.
Abby Zwerner testified in her $40 million lawsuit filed against a former assistant principal who is accused of ignoring multiple warnings that the student had a gun.
Zwerner was shot in the hand and chest in January 2023 as she sat at a reading table in her first-grade classroom at Richneck Elementary School in Newport News. Zwerner spent nearly two weeks in the hospital, required six surgeries and does not have the full use of her left hand. A bullet remains in her chest.
“I thought I had died. I thought I was either on my way to heaven or in heaven,” Zwerner testified.
The shooting sent shock waves through the military shipbuilding community and the country, with many wondering how a child so young could access a gun and shoot his teacher.
Zwerner no longer works for the school district and has said she has no plans to teach again. It was revealed in court Wednesday that she has become a licensed cosmetologist.
Former assistant principal Ebony Parker is accused of failing to act after several people voiced concerns to her in the hours before the shooting that the student had taken a gun to school. Parker is the only defendant in the lawsuit. A judge previously dismissed the district’s superintendent and the school principal.
Parker faces a separate criminal trial next month on eight counts of felony child neglect. Each of the counts is punishable by up to five years in prison upon a conviction.
The student’s mother was sentenced to nearly four years in prison for felony child neglect and federal weapons charges. Her son told authorities he got his mother’s handgun by climbing onto a drawer to reach the top of a dresser, where the firearm was in his mom’s purse.
California
Man sentenced to 146 years for overdose deaths of women dumped at hospitals
LOS ANGELES (AP) — A Beverly Hills man has been sentenced to 146 years to life in prison for the drug overdose deaths of two women who were dumped at two hospitals in Southern California, prosecutors said.
David Brian Pearce, 42, was convicted in February of first-degree murder for the deaths of Christy Giles and Hilda Marcela Cabrales-Arzola, who overdosed on fentanyl. Prosecutors said Pearce supplied them with the drug.
Pearce was also found guilty of crimes against a series of women between 2007 and 2021, including sodomy and rape of an unconscious or sleeping victim.
He was sentenced Wednesday. An email sent to Pearce’s lawyer was not immediately returned Thursday.
“This sentence delivers long-awaited justice for Ms. Cabrales-Arzola, Ms. Giles, and the courageous sexual assault victims who came forward and testified,” Los Angeles County District Attorney Nathan Hochman said in a statement.
Pearce’s co-defendant, 46-year-old Brant Osborn, is scheduled for a pretrial appointment on Nov. 18. After a mistrial in February, Osborn will likely face a second trial on two counts of accessory to murder after the fact.
Pearce was arrested in December 2021 in connection with the deaths a month earlier of Giles, a model, and her friend, Cabrales-Arzola, an architect.
Giles and Cabrales-Arzola had attended an East Los Angeles warehouse party, after which they went to Pearce’s Beverly Hills townhouse.
Giles was found dead outside Southern California Hospital in Culver City after masked men in a car with no license plates dropped her there, police said.
Cabrales-Arzola was left at Kaiser Permanente West Los Angeles Hospital, where she died 11 days later after being removed from life support.
Tennessee
Media coalition sues prison officials to get more access to executions
A coalition of news organizations including The Associated Press is suing Tennessee’s top prisons official and a warden, alleging state execution protocols unconstitutionally limit the media’s access and hamper thorough and accurate reporting.
Currently, reporters witnessing lethal injections do not see the entire process. The coalition argues the protocols violate “the public and press’s statutory and constitutional rights to witness the entirety of executions conducted by the Tennessee Department of Correction, from the time the condemned enters the execution chamber until after the condemned is declared dead.”
They’re seeking a judgment that the protocols are unconstitutional and an injunction to allow the press to see the full execution process.
“This lack of access has limited the public’s ability to obtain information from independent observers about execution proceedings in Tennessee,” the lawsuit says.
The lawsuit, filed in Davidson County Chancery Court in Nashville, names as defendants Kenneth Nelsen, warden of Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville that houses Tennessee’s execution chamber, and Frank Strada, commissioner of the Tennessee Department of Correction.
A department spokesperson said Wednesday that it does not comment on pending litigation. Nelsen’s office referred a reporter to the department.
During executions, media members begin seeing what happens once the condemned person is already strapped to a gurney and hooked up to IV lines. They don’t know at which precise moment the injections begin and those administering the injections are in a separate room.
The protocol says that after the syringes of saline and pentobarbital are administered, a team leader signals to the warden and a five-minute waiting period begins. After that period, the blinds are closed, the camera is turned off and then the doctor comes in to determine if the person is dead. If that is the case, the warden announces on the intercom system that the sentence was carried out and witnesses are directed to exit.
The lawsuit says the First Amendment of the U.S. and Tennessee Constitutions guarantee the public’s right to witness the entirety of executions. Tennessee law spells out specific categories of witnesses entitled to be present at executions, such as seven members of the news media.
The lawsuit cited the August execution of Byron Black, during which curtains in the witness room were only open for 10 minutes.
The Nashville Banner’s reporting on Black’s death said that according to his attorney, medical personnel had trouble finding veins in his arms, which led to a puddle of blood on his right side. The attorney said it took 10 minutes just for the tubes to be attached.
The lawsuit presents the corrections department’s log of Black’s execution. The lawsuit points out that the media was only able to see when the warden ordered the blinds open and the closed-circuit TV activated; when the warden asked Black if he had any last comments; the completion of the lethal injection process; and the closing of the blinds and deactivation of the closed circuit TV.
The camera and closed circuit TV are viewed by the execution team, not media witnesses.
The lawsuit states that “media witnesses had no access to that stage of the proceeding to independently report on it, leaving the public with no account from a neutral observer.”
In addition to AP, the media coalition includes Gannett Co., Inc.; Nashville Public Media, Inc.; Nashville Public Radio; Scripps Media, Inc.; Six Rivers Media, LLC; and TEGNA INC.
California
UCLA sued by Pasadena, Rose Bowl official over moving games to SoFi Stadium
LOS ANGELES (AP) — The city of Pasadena, California, and the Rose Bowl Operating Company have sued UCLA for allegedly trying to move its college football games from one of the sport’s most iconic stadiums to the much newer SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, California, the Los Angeles Times reported Wednesday.
According to the Times, the suit accuses UCLA of “profoundly” betraying its trust by attempting to relocate its home games from the facility the Bruins have called home for 43 years to the home of the NFL’s Los Angeles Rams and Los Angeles Chargers.
UCLA’s current lease runs through 2044. But the stadium is 26 miles from campus, and the Bruins have struggled with attendance in recent years. This season, UCLA’s average attendance for its four home games is roughly 35,000.
SoFi Stadium opened in September 2020, is about 12 miles from UCLA’s campus and has a capacity of 70,240.
“This lawsuit arises in an era when money too often eclipses meaning and the pursuit of profit threatens to erase the very traditions that breathe life into institutions,” the suit claims. “Some commitments are too fundamental to be traded away.”
UCLA has undergone several major changes over the past two seasons. It joined Southern California, Washington and Oregon in leaving their longtime conference home, the Pac-12, for the Big Ten in 2024.
