Get ready. This factual setup is stupid.
In Tennessee, a former sheriff recently won a settlement of more than $800,000 after his free speech rights were violated. Police arrested him at his home and jailed him for over a month because he posted a Charlie Kirk meme. It was a simple case from the start, but seeing it play out this way should have reminded police departments across the country that you can’t just arrest people for saying things you don’t like.
If only Texas police would bother to read.
In Texas, a woman was recently arrested for warning residents that the water coming from their taps was contaminated. And it wasn’t one of those conspiratorial 5Gs that contaminated our reservoirs either – the water looked like this:
Fox has a cover:
Police in the town of Trinidad, located in Henderson County, about an hour southeast of Dallas, arrested Jennifer Combs on May 8 and charged her with false alarm or report.
Her arrest followed a Facebook post she made on her “Southern Belle Watch” account, in which she claimed the city’s water problems had led to hospitalizations due to bacteria.
The rationale for this accusation was that his messages contained false information that could cause fear, panic, or an unnecessary emergency response in the community. It’s nice to know they have laws like this on the books – why aren’t they brought up when people denied the vaccine’s effectiveness so harshly that children had to die of measles before they would listen to science again? Even if she was wrong about the cause, her publication never caused more fear and panic than if people turned on their sink and saw what they saw.
She has since filed a complaint for arrest. She’s unlikely to get six figures from the lawsuit — she only spent one day in jail, compared to 37 for the former sheriff, but she should be compensated for her time and for the violation of her rights anyway.
Woman files legal action after arrest for Facebook post about water supply problems in Trinidad (Fox)
Earlier: Man arrested for Charlie Kirk Post wins 6-figure settlement
Chris Williams became Social Media Manager and Associate Editor for Above the Law in June 2021. Before joining the team, he moonlighted as a minor Memelord™ in the Law School Memes for Edgy T14s Facebook group. He endured Missouri long enough to graduate from Washington University Law School in St. Louis. He is a former boat builder who is learning to swim and is interested in rhetoric, Spinozists and humor. Getting back into cycling wouldn’t hurt either. You can reach him by email at (email protected) and by Tweet/Bluesky at @WritesForRent.
