On a humid August night in Washington, D.C., a submarine-style sandwich soared through the air and struck a U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agent outside a bustling nightclub. That airborne sandwich, hurled by Sean Charles Dunn, a former Justice Department employee, has since become a flashpoint in the ongoing debate over protest, policing, and the limits of political expression in the nation’s capital.
The incident occurred on August 10, 2025, along the U Street corridor—a vibrant stretch known for its nightlife and, lately, for the heavy presence of federal law enforcement. According to AP, Dunn approached a group of CBP agents, who were stationed outside a club hosting a “Latin Night,” and began shouting profanities and accusations. “Why are you here? I don’t want you in my city!” he yelled, calling the agents “fascists” and “racists” while chanting “shame.”
What happened next was captured on a bystander’s cellphone and quickly went viral: Dunn, visibly agitated and red-faced, flung a sandwich—described variously as a Subway-style or footlong hoagie—squarely at CBP Agent Gregory Lairmore’s chest. Lairmore, a 23-year veteran of the agency, later testified in federal court that the sandwich “exploded” on impact. “I could feel it through my ballistic vest,” he told jurors, adding, “You could smell the onions and the mustard.” The sandwich left a visible mustard stain on his shirt, and Lairmore recounted finding an onion dangling from his police radio afterward. “It kind of exploded all over,” he said, according to CNN.
Dunn, who did not dispute throwing the sandwich, was quickly apprehended about a block away. In a video from an officer’s body camera shown in court, Dunn explained, “I was trying to draw them away from where they were. I succeeded.”
What might have been a fleeting, if messy, confrontation instead ballooned into a legal and political spectacle. Prosecutors charged Dunn with misdemeanor assault after a grand jury refused to indict him on a felony count. Assistant U.S. Attorney John Parron, in his opening statement, told the jury, “No matter who you are, you can’t just go around throwing stuff at people because you’re mad.” He emphasized, “Respectfully, that’s not what this case is about. You just can’t do what the defendant did here. He crossed a line.”
For the defense, the case was about something else entirely. Dunn’s attorney, Julia Gatto, argued that the sandwich toss was an “exclamation point” to her client’s constitutionally protected protest against President Donald Trump’s law enforcement surge in Washington. “It was a harmless gesture at the end of him exercising his right to speak out,” she told jurors, insisting, “He is overwhelmingly not guilty.” Gatto added, “He did it. He threw the sandwich. 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.”
As The Washington Post reported, the defense also sought to cast doubt on the severity of the incident. Defense attorney Sabrina Shroff presented a photo of the sandwich lying almost entirely in its wrapper on the ground after the throw, suggesting it hadn’t “exploded at all.” Lairmore, however, stood by his account, reiterating that mustard and onions ended up on his uniform and radio antenna.
The trial, which began on November 4, 2025, has drawn intense attention—not just because of the oddity of the alleged weapon, but because it became a symbol of local resistance to the Trump administration’s deployment of federal agents to Washington. Posters and murals depicting Dunn mid-throw appeared across the city, and social media lit up with debate over the meaning of his act. According to CNN, the case “became something of a symbol of the reaction to the deployment of federal forces in Washington this summer and a moment of protest in the city.”
The government’s response was swift and, some argue, heavy-handed. Dunn, who had worked as an international affairs specialist in the Justice Department’s criminal division, was fired after his arrest. Attorney General Pam Bondi, in a social media post, called him “an example of the Deep State,” declaring, “You will NOT work in this administration while disrespecting our government and law enforcement.” Dunn was released from custody but later rearrested in a dramatic raid by armed federal agents in riot gear—a moment the White House amplified by posting a slickly produced video of the raid on its official X account, as noted by AP.
Dunn’s legal team has argued that the prosecution is politically motivated, pointing to the statements by Bondi and the White House as evidence that their client is being targeted for his political speech. They have asked U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols, a Trump appointee, to dismiss the case on grounds of vindictive and selective prosecution, though Nichols had not ruled on that request before the trial began.
Meanwhile, the trial has been punctuated by moments of levity. Lairmore testified that his colleagues later gave him joke gifts, including a plush sandwich and a patch reading “felony footlong,” which he displayed in his office. Defense attorneys seized on these gestures as proof that even the agents involved saw the case as “overblown” and “worthy of a joke.”
Yet, beneath the humor lies a deeper tension. The trial comes in the wake of the Trump administration’s controversial law enforcement surge in Washington, which saw dozens of Trump supporters convicted of felonies for assaulting or interfering with police during the January 6 attack on the Capitol—only for Trump to pardon or order the dismissal of charges for all of them. The contrast between those cases and Dunn’s prosecution has not gone unnoticed among local residents and activists, many of whom see the sandwich-throwing case as emblematic of broader issues surrounding protest, police accountability, and political expression in the city.
Judge Nichols, for his part, described the case as “the simplest case in world history” and expected hearings to conclude within two days. Yet, its implications are anything but simple. As the city watches and waits for a verdict, the sandwich saga continues to stir debate about where protest ends and criminality begins—and who gets to decide.
Whatever the outcome, the story of Sean Dunn and the flying sandwich has already left its mark on Washington’s summer of unrest, serving as a reminder that even the most unlikely objects can become symbols of resistance in turbulent times.
