Woman arrested for posting Game of Thrones meme on city councilman’s page now suing city after losing job
A woman has filed a lawsuit against a city following her arrest for sharing a GIF from Game of Thrones on social media.
Kathleen Tierney, 56, from Tucson, has started legal proceedings against the City of Tempe in Arizona following the incident online, which occurred in August 2025.
Her lawsuit claims that the city contravened her First, Fourth, and 14th Amendment rights when she was arrested, The Arizona Republic reports.
Police arrived at her home in September 2025, believing that the post constituted a 'threat', claims which Tierney has denied.
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The online exchange saw Tierney share the GIF to the public Facebook page of Tempe Councilman Randy Keating in the run-up to a council meeting.
The GIF in question was from season six episode 10 of Game of Thrones, and shows a short clip of the destruction of the Sept of Baelor in King's Landing, with antagonist Cersei Lannister looking on from a balcony after having orchestrated the explosion.
Tierney captioned the post: "Watching tonight's council meeting."
Police treated the post as a potential 'threat', and as a result, officials evacuated the council chambers and held the meeting online instead.
"Threats like this not only endanger lives, they disrupt civic engagement and silence the voices of the people we serve. We will not allow intimidation to interfere with democracy in our city," Police Chief Ken McCoy said at the time.
Tierney has insisted that the post was not a 'threat', but was intended as 'political commentary' referring to a debate around city parks ordinance.
Documents showed that Keating told police that he didn't wish to 'overreact or under-react' after seeing the GIF. The report also suggested that Keating was a fan of the hit HBO show.
It alleged that Tierney had informed officers she shared the GIF in part because Keating had named his dog after one of the characters in Game of Thrones.
In addition to being arrested at her home, the City also publicly identified Tierney in a news release in which she was accused of disrupting civic engagement, interfering with democracy, intimidation, silencing residents, and endangering lives.
Tierney told The Arizona Republic that she thought police had believed her account was a 'dummy' account, as she did not post pictures of friends, family, or vacations on there.
She added: "I am just not a Facebook person."
Police attempted to pursue charges of misdemeanor disorderly conduct and a felony computer-tampering charge.
However, the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office did not take the charges any further, deciding against pursuing a prosecution, saying there was 'no reasonable likelihood of conviction'.
But by that time, Tierney had already lost her six-figure job as a result of the incident, the complaint alleges.
Now, Tierney is suing the City of Tempe, accusing it of defamation, retaliation, abuse of process, and false arrest.
In her lawsuit, Tierney claims that she suffered 'paralyzing embarrassment' as a result of her arrest, as well as major damage to her reputation.
The City of Tempe has said previously that police followed procedures and claimed that Tierney was treated the same as any other person in the community.
UNILAD has contacted the City of Tempe for comment.
Topics: US News, Court, Politics, Social Media
Kit Roberts