Hacker News Reader

Comment by bonsai_spool | Hacker News Reader

> There is a little bit more context here in a different article where the sheriff explains how the posts were interpreted as a threat

> https://www.tennessean.com/story/news/2025/09/23/tennessee-l...

There isn’t anything there that wasn’t in the original article.

View on HN

The Reason article said there was no reason to interpret this as a threat and that it was entirely just political. The article made it seem like the memes were held completely out of context. It mentioned there happens to be a nearby Perry High School just by chance but the nearby Perry High School is the central reason why this was interpreted as a threat. This was posted in a group that was organizing an event at the high school. I could see how someone might construe this as a threat more clearly from the tennessean article if they were being overly cautious. Also the sheriff mentioned the arrest was not done for legal speech content but more for the coincidental possibility this was a threat. Reason didn't elaborate on this.

The Reason article is making this seem like it's entirely political and unreasonable. I don't think an arrest should have been made, that is too far. This seems like an unfortunate coincidence but someone looked at all this and reported it as a threat. The fact Perry High School's name is highly relevant here was not included.

As someone who grew up in a small town with a not so moral local law enforcement, I almost guarantee this sheriff has a political agenda against someone who dared post a meme about their favorite podcaster who was just assassinated.

That is in the Reason article.

> The Reason article said there was no reason to interpret this as a threat and that it was entirely just political. The article made it seem like the memes were held completely out of context. It mentioned there happens to be a nearby Perry High School just by chance but the nearby Perry High School is the central reason why this was interpreted as a threat. This was posted in a group that was organizing an event at the high school. I could see how someone might construe this as a threat more clearly from the tennessean article if they were being overly cautious. Also the sheriff mentioned the arrest was not done for legal speech content but more for the coincidental possibility this was a threat. Reason didn't elaborate on this.

> The Reason article is making this seem like it's entirely political and unreasonable. I don't think an arrest should have been made, that is too far. This seems like an unfortunate coincidence but someone looked at all this and reported it as a threat. The fact Perry High School's name is highly relevant here was not included.

All of this was in the first article. With far fewer intrusive ads.

They totally de-emphasized the point about the name of the high school like it was just the sheriff going out of their way to find memes they were offended by. They mentioned the name as if it didn't matter to the case at all when it clearly did. I couldn't understand why someone reported this as a threat based on the Reason article. I can kind of see why someone might be concerned now but as I said the cops shouldn't have arrested the guy when no threat exists. This whole thread is filled up with people who now think there is a police force looking for offensive memes forgetting that someone reported this based on the name. If you don't think that then go FOIA the sheriff and prove this is corruption. If you don't think the Reason article was trying to portray this as out of control police trying to politically enforce memes and it's totally unbiased whatever, I'm done.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com