When Bread Hits the Badge: What the Acquittal of the ‘Sandwich Guy’ Spells out for the future of D.C.

On Nov. 6, Sean Dunn, aka the ‘Sandwich Guy,’ was found not guilty by a jury after almost 3 months of legal proceedings. 

Dunn, who threw a subway sandwich at a Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) officer in August, was charged with felony assault by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia after the D.C. Superior Court informed Dunn they would not prosecute him. However, a grand jury found insubstantial grounds for Dunn’s prosecution, and therefore refused to indict him. Despite this, the U.S. Attorney’s Office pivoted and instead charged Dunn with a misdemeanor violation of attacking an officer of the United States. In the end, a jury of D.C. residents decided to acquit Dunn after seven hours of deliberations.

In a memorandum aimed at convincing the courts to dismiss Dunn’s case on grounds of vindictive and selective prosecution, Dunn’s legal team compared and contrasted the cases of the January 6 defendants and that of Sean Dunn. According to the memo, both Dunn and those who stormed the capital were charged with felony assault, even though the January 6 defendants were videoed attacking police with metal poles, baseball bats, and objects of the like, and Dunn was recorded throwing a sandwich at a CBP officer. 

Speaking with Rookery reporters, Julia Gatto, an attorney at Steptoe law firm who represented Dunn along with two other attorneys, said the pursuit of this case was unjust because it was aimed at targeting a specific individual for their political speech. 

Gatto and her team have argued that Dunn was charged with felony assault not because he threw a sandwich, but because he criticised the current administration while throwing it. 

Charging an individual for a crime because of their political views or other attributes (race, gender, religion, etc.) is called selective prosecution, which Dunn’s legal team claimed the U.S. Attorney's Office was practicing when they charged Dunn with felony assault. 

Gatto said that, “you should not be throwing sandwiches,” but also that political protest is complicated.

Discussing what the event of Dunn’s prosecution could mean in a larger sense, Walls student Raphael Petruska (‘29) claimed that, “If we start charging people for [throwing sandwiches] then democracy as we know it is dead.” 

Student Sophie Katz (‘29) brought up how Dunn’s prosecution could impact Walls students directly. Katz stated that, “It makes moving around in D.C. more difficult. More National Guard officers are being moved to D.C. and little things could provoke them and lead to a student’s arrest.” One example she gave was that accidentally tripping and falling into a National Guard officer might be seen as assault, and the situation could quickly escalate.

One Walls student, Kai Hoang (‘29), claimed that protest is most effective when many people are unified in promoting a common theme or message, and that Dunn’s act of sandwich throwing was only slightly effective because he was a lone actor. 

Katz addressed how political protest can be confusing or complicated. She said, “I don’t think anyone should be violent in their protests, but I also don’t think a sandwich counts as a violent item.” She believes that Dunn was expressing his right to free speech and expression, but that he went too far with the sandwich.

During the trial of this case, Gatto said there were many moments of realization of how inconsequential the throwing of a sub sandwich truly was. However, she says this case, “spoke to a moment we’re still in today,” especially in D.C.

Gatto, along with two other attorneys, took this case pro-bono and was deeply invested in the process of securing an acquittal for Dunn. For her, the most memorable moment from the trial was when the jury walked out and pronounced Dunn not guilty, a hard-fought win for the rights and liberties of the ‘Sandwich Guy.’