A former Department of Justice employee who threw a sandwich at a federal agent during Donald Trump’s law enforcement surge in Washington DC was found not guilty of assault by a DC jury on Thursday in the latest legal rebuke of the federal intervention.
Sean Charles Dunn, a former justice department paralegal, became a symbol of the resistance to Trump’s occupation in the nation’s capital when video of him, clad in a pink polo shirt and shorts, throwing a sandwich at a Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agent, wearing a bulletproof vest, went viral.
“Why are you here? I don’t want you in my city!” Dunn shouted at the officers on 10 August, calling them “fascists”. After throwing the sandwich, he took off running.
Dunn’s lawyers argued his sandwich throw was a “harmless gesture” meant as an act of protest. In a city under federal siege, the incident served as a rallying point, with posters showing Dunn mid-throw popping up around the district. Prosecutors said Dunn knew he didn’t have a right to throw the sandwich at the agent, and that his speech was not the issue, but that he threw a sandwich at a federal officer “at point-blank range”.
Dunn’s attorney, Julia Gatto, said in opening statements this week: “Sean Dunn expressed his opinions. He expressed them loudly, and he expressed them maybe you think vulgarly, but he expressed his opinions. But words without force are never assault.”
A grand jury in DC declined to indict Dunn in August on a felony assault charge, but he was eventually charged with a misdemeanor. The case moved ahead in federal court, with US district judge Carl Nichols acknowledging the strange case and saying the trial would be short “because it’s the simplest case in the world”.
Dunn was fired by the justice department after the incident. Pam Bondi, the attorney general, said at the time that he was an example of the “deep state”. “If you touch any law enforcement officer, we will come after you. I just learned that this defendant worked at the Department of Justice – NO LONGER,” she said.
While he initially ran away, he was later apprehended by police that night, then released. But federal agents, armed and in riot gear, rearrested him at his home despite him offering to turn himself in to police. Video of the arrest then was made into a video posted on X by the White House.
The jury acquittal was another example of DC residents pushing back on federal troops in their city. Grand juries have in several instances, including Dunn’s, refused to indict people with assaulting officers as the US attorney Jeanine Pirro has pushed for felonies.
The man who was hit with the sandwich was CBP agent Gregory Lairmore, who told the jury earlier this week that the sandwich “kind of exploded all over my uniform” and “smelled of onions and mustard”, according to the Washington Post. The defense pushed back, as it appeared in imagery from the scene that the sandwich did not leave its wrapper.
A GoFundMe for Dunn noted that he served in the US air force and had deployed to Afghanistan, then went into government service. “He is proud of his career serving the people of the United States,” the donations page says.
