Hurling a sandwich at a federal agent was an act of protest for Washington, D.C., resident Sean Charles Dunn. A jury should resolve if it was additionally a federal crime.
“No matter who you are, you can’t just go around throwing stuff at people because you’re mad,” Assistant U.S. Lawyer John Parron informed jurors on Tuesday at the beginning of Dunn’s trial on a misdemeanor assault cost.
Dunn doesn’t dispute that he threw his submarine-style sandwich at a U.S. Customs and Border Safety agent exterior a nightclub on the night time of Aug. 10. It was an “exclamation point” for Dunn as he expressed his opposition to President Donald Trump’s law-enforcement surge within the nation’s capital, protection legal professional Julia Gatto stated in the course of the trial’s opening statements.
“It was a harmless gesture at the end of him exercising his right to speak out,” Gatto stated. “He is overwhelmingly not guilty.”
A bystander’s cellphone video of the confrontation went viral on social media, turning Dunn right into a image of resistance towards Trump’s monthslong federal takeover. Murals depicting him mid-throw popped up within the metropolis just about in a single day.
“He did it. He threw the sandwich,” Gatto informed jurors. “And now the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia has turned that moment — a thrown sandwich — into a criminal case, a federal criminal case charging a federal offense.”
A grand jury refused to indict Dunn on a felony assault depend, a part of a sample of pushback towards the Justice Division’s prosecution of surge-related felony circumstances. After the uncommon rebuke from the grand jury, U.S. Lawyer Jeanine Pirro’s workplace charged Dunn as an alternative with a misdemeanor.
CBP Agent Gregory Lairmore, the federal government’s first witness, stated the sandwich “exploded” when it struck his chest exhausting sufficient that he might really feel it via his ballistic vest.
“You could smell the onions and the mustard,” he recalled.
Lairmore and different CBP brokers have been standing in entrance of a membership internet hosting a “Latin Night” when Dunn approached and shouted profanities at them, calling them “fascists” and “racists” and chanting “shame.”
“Why are you here? I don’t want you in my city!” Dunn shouted, in accordance with police.
Lairmore testified that he and the opposite brokers tried to de-escalate the scenario.
“He was red-faced. Enraged. Calling me and my colleagues all kinds of names,” he stated. “I didn’t respond. That’s his constitutional right to express his opinion.”
After throwing the sandwich, Dunn ran off however was apprehended a few block away. Jurors noticed video from an officer’s physique digicam after Dunn’s arrest.
“I was trying to draw them away from where they were,” Dunn stated on the video. “I succeeded.”
Later, Lairmore’s colleagues jokingly gave him items making gentle of the incident, together with a sandwich-shaped plush toy and a patch that stated “felony footlong.” Protection legal professional Sabrina Schroff pointed to these as proof that the brokers acknowledge this case is “overblown” and “worthy of a joke.”
It’s unclear if Dunn will testify after his trial resumes on Wednesday. One in every of his attorneys indicated on Tuesday that he hadn’t but determined whether or not to take the stand as soon as the federal government rests its case.
Parron informed jurors that everyone is entitled to their views about Trump’s federal surge.
“Respectfully, that’s not what this case is about,” the prosecutor stated. “You just can’t do what the defendant did here. He crossed a line.”
Dunn was a Justice Division worker who labored as a world affairs specialist in its felony division. After Dunn’s arrest, Lawyer Common Pam Bondi introduced his firing in a social media publish that referred to him as “an example of the Deep State.”
Dunn was launched from custody however rearrested when a group of armed federal brokers in riot gear raided his dwelling. The White Home posted a extremely produced “propaganda” video of the raid on its official X account, Dunn’s attorneys stated.
Dunn’s attorneys have argued that the posts by Bondi and the White Home present Dunn was impermissibly focused for his political speech. They urged U.S. District Choose Carl Nichols to dismiss the case for what they allege is a vindictive and selective prosecution. Nichols, who was nominated by Trump, didn’t rule on that request earlier than the trial began Monday.
Dunn is charged with assaulting, resisting, opposing, impeding, intimidating and interfering with a federal officer. Dozens of Trump supporters who stormed the Capitol have been convicted of felonies for assaulting or interfering with police in the course of the Jan. 6 assault. Trump pardoned or ordered the dismissal of expenses for all of them.
