DC’s Sandwich Boy Speaks Out in Exclusive Interview for News themezone

Sean Dunn left federal court Thursday relieved to no longer face the possibility of prison. Better known as DC’s “sandwich boy,” a jury found the 37-year-old not guilty of assaulting a U.S. Border Patrol agent with his now-famous waterboarding.

But Dunn is still grappling with all the attention generated by his arrest and trial, and the knowledge that he altered his future with a viral moment of protest.

“The artwork, the memes… I’m glad I can inspire people,” Dunn told News themezone in his first interview after his acquittal. “I’m not comfortable with the ‘hero’ narrative. And it’s been… honestly, it’s been uncomfortable for me. All the attention has made me uncomfortable.”

Dunn, a soft-spoken Air Force veteran, describes himself as private, a far cry from the guy who shouted “fascist” and “shame” at a group of federal agents before hurling a meter stick into the chest of Gregory Lairmore, a Border Patrol division chief. To put it in context, the incident occurred at 11 pm on a Sunday in DC’s U Street NW nightlife corridor, near an LGBTQ+ club hosting a Latin night.

Telephone footage of the encounter was already exploding on social media while Dunn was detained at a Metropolitan Police Department station. He was arraigned in Superior Court the next day before being released and returning to his apartment in DC. Then things started to get surreal.

“I’m not comfortable with the ‘hero’ narrative… All the attention has made me uncomfortable.”

– Sean Dunn on his sudden celebrity

That Wednesday night, a squad of federal agents descended on Dunn’s apartment building, appearing armed for battle.

“I knew they might come,” Dunn recalled. “I had spoken with [my lawyer] and she was going to make arrangements for me to surrender. But it was getting late, we hadn’t heard back, and I was worried they might come. “When they knocked on my door, I knew it was them.”

Dunn said he told officers through the closed door that he wanted to call his attorney, but they wouldn’t let him.

“The door opened and they had rifles in their hands, pointing riot shields at me,” he said. “They had received a key from the building manager, so they didn’t actually break down the door. It was terrifying when it happened. And of course, I didn’t resist.”

Dunn did not contact his attorney until the next day.

So The White House posted a slickly produced promotional video of Dunn’s new arrest on social media.presumably funded by taxpayer dollars. Dunn and his attorney understood why he was never able to turn himself in.

Dave Jamieson/News themezone

Pam Bondi, President Donald Trump’s attorney general, issued a joyful statement saying Dunn was charged with felony assault on a federal officer, which carries up to eight years in prison. He also said he had been fired from his job as a Justice Department paralegal and called Dunn “an example of the deep state we have faced.”

“It was very uncomfortable to have the attorney general and the [U.S.] lawyer making statements about me,” Dunn said. “When you have such powerful people talking about you personally, it’s very scary.”

Without a job, Dunn couldn’t afford to pay an expensive lawyer out of pocket. Her attorney, Sabrina Shroff, represents indigent clients assigned to her in federal court; She handled the case without charging a fee. Julia Gatto and Nicholas Silverman, attorneys at the large Steptoe law firm, provided pro-bono assistance. “Thank God,” Dunn said of his legal team.

Because he was fired for cause, Dunn has not been receiving unemployment benefits. His friends launched a GoFundMe (“Help Support Sandwich Boy”) in his name.

Dunn’s sandwich toss preceded Trump’s takeover of police in Washington by a matter of hours. As masked immigration agents began roaming the city and capturing immigrants, Dunn’s moment of comic defiance gave a boost to progressives who felt like all hell was breaking loose. It also provided Dunn’s journalists and supporters with a seemingly endless source of puns.

“The door opened and they had rifles drawn, pointed at me, with riot shields.”

– Sean Dunn on his new arrest

Seeing the street art prompted Dunn in turn.

“If I could inspire people and give them hope, that would be fantastic,” he said.

Jeanine Pirro, Trump’s federal prosecutor for D.C., downgraded the charge to a misdemeanor after a grand jury declined to return an indictment on the felony charge, one of several repudiations D.C. juries have made of Pirro during Trump’s D.C. crackdown. But prosecutors kept Dunn’s case in federal court, and the possibility of up to a year in prison still loomed over him.

The seriousness of the situation helped him remain impassive during some absurd court proceedings.

Lairmore, a federal agent for 23 years, testified under cross-examination that the sandwich “exploded” upon impact and that he felt it through his bulletproof vest. He could not testify what type of sandwich it was, but maintained that he “could smell the onions and mustard,” prompting a snort from an observer in the gallery.

The defense team showed a photograph in which the offending sandwich appeared to be virtually intact in its Subway wrapper, an apparent contradiction that Shroff highlighted in his closing argument.

She told the jury that the case was ultimately “about a sandwich.”

“A sandwich that, according to Agent Lairmore, somehow exploded on his chest in a shower of onions and mustard, but also landed intact on the ground still in its Subway wrapper,” he said.

Dave Jamieson/News themezone

After the verdict, Dunn gave a statement to the press, returned to his apartment and called his mother, his aunt and a former supervisor who had been following the case.

“I’m ready to move on,” he said.

Despite his acquittal, the ordeal has taken a heavy personal toll. Dunn hoped to one day retire from the federal government with a good pension. He had accumulated three years in the United States Forest Service and almost another three in the Department of Justice. His five years in the Air Force included a deployment to Kandahar, Afghanistan, from July 2010 to January 2011.

“This makes my future very uncertain,” Dunn said. “Anyway, I was feeling a little less safe with so many layoffs of federal employees. But I had a total of over 10 years of federal service, so I was hoping to one day retire from federal service. And suddenly all that was taken away from me, I’m still processing it and navigating it. I need to find a job.”

Dunn is not gloating about the verdict. Trump’s Justice Department has been violating rules by prosecuting the president’s critics. Following his attorney’s advice, Dunn did not want to discuss the details of the sandwich incident or what he thought that night. But he was willing to answer a question that somehow was never resolved during the trial.

“It was turkey,” Dunn said of the sandwich.

And yes, it came with onion and mustard.