On November 6, 2025, Sean Charles Dunn, popularly nicknamed Sandwich Guy, was acquitted by a jury in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia on the charge of assaulting or impeding a federal officer, for throwing a Subway sandwich at a U.S. Customs and Border Protection agent in Washington, D.C.
— from Wikipedia
Once, when we were children, I flung a spoonful of mashed potatoes at my brother, and hit him in the chest. I don’t exactly recall what prompted this act on my part, but I suspect it was done playfully and not in anger. I do recall that my father immediately sent me to my room, without allowing me to finish my dinner… and more meaningfully, without dessert.
Sometimes food is thrown playfully, and other times in anger.
On occasion, it gets thrown just to see what will happen next.
To judge from the videos I’m seen, Sean C. Dunn was angry when he threw his foot-long Subway sandwich at Gregory Lairmore, a Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agent patrolling the streets in Washington DC. Although agent Lairmore was wearing a protective, bullet-proof vest, the sandwich was thrown at “point-blank range”, according to federal prosecutors.
The food-throwing occurred outside a nightclub on August 10. A grand jury later declined to indict Mr. Dunn on a felony assault charge, which struck some people as slightly unbelievable in light of a famous quote from Sol Wachtler — chief justice of New York’s Supreme Court — who claimed in 1985 that district attorneys have so much influence over grand juries — and the indictment bar is set so low — that “any good prosecutor can get a grand jury to indict a ham sandwich.”
Either times have changed, or Mr. Dunn weapon of choice was not a ham sandwich. Either way, he was not indicted by the grand jury.
So the federal prosecutors lowered their expectations and charged Mr. Dunn with misdemeanor assault, which carries a maximum sentence of one year in prison, in addition to fines and probation.
At Mr. Dunn’s trial, agent Lairmore was called at the prosecution’s first witness, and he testified he could feel the sandwich even through his ballistic vest.
“You could smell the onions and the mustard,” Lairmore told the jury.
Mr. Dunn admitted that he threw the sandwich at the CBP agent, and explained that he did so to protest the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown and law enforcement surge in the nation’s capital. Defense attorney Julia Gatto argued during her opening statements that Mr. Dunn’s actions did not amount to a federal crime.
“He did it. He threw the sandwich,” attorney Gatto told the jury. “It was a harmless gesture, at the end of him exercising his right to speak out. He is overwhelmingly not guilty.”
On November 6, the jury did indeed return a verdict of ‘not guilty’ — after deliberating for about seven hours.
Highly-paid federal prosecutors not only failed to indict a sandwich, but failed to convict it on a lesser offense.
The ordinary people of Washington DC turned Mr. Dunn into something of a folk hero, as someone willing to protest the unprecedented and unwarranted presence of armed federal troops on the DC streets.
After a video of the incident went viral, people shared memes and created art, including street art in the style of famous street artist ‘Banksy’.
People began referring to the Sandwich Guy in protest signs, and selling t-shirts and other products commemorating the incident.
Sandwiches became a symbol of resistance.
The Washington Post called Mr. Dunn’s acquittal “the highest-profile repudiation to date of [US Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeanine] Pirro’s efforts to ratchet up penalties for local offenses”.
But Mr. Dunn was definitely guilty.
He was guilty of wasting a perfectly good sandwich.
I have to assume he was at least deprived of dessert.
Underrated writer Louis Cannon grew up in the vast American West, although his ex-wife, given the slightest opportunity, will deny that he ever grew up at all. You can read more stories on his Substack account.