(CNN) — The man who threw a Subway sandwich at a federal officer in the early days of the Trump administration’s law enforcement surge in Washington, D.C., earlier this summer has been found not guilty of assault.
The incident quickly became a symbol – somewhat in jest – for resistance in D.C. against the Trump takeover of law enforcement and ramp up in deportation efforts, with spray painted posters and internet jokes spreading as an homage to the incident popping up in its wake.
“As always, we accept a jury’s verdict; that is the system within which we function. However, law enforcement should never be subjected to assault, no matter how ‘minor,’ D.C. U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro, who at one time was the Westchester County District Attorney, told CNN in a statement after the verdict.
“Even children know when they are angry, they are not allowed to throw objects at one another,” she added.
During the trial, federal jurors were shown several videos of the man, Sean Dunn, yelling at officers before throwing a subway sandwich at one Customs and Border Protection agent before running away and being detained shortly thereafter.
In one video taken from a police officer’s body-worn camera, Dunn told the officer, “I was trying to draw them away from where they were. I succeeded.”
After the verdict was read, Dunn told reporters that he was “relieved and looking forward to moving on with my life.”
“I would like to thank family and friends and strangers for all of their support, whether it was emotional or spiritual or artistic or financial,” Dunn said outside the courthouse.
“That night I believed that I was protecting the rights of immigrants,” Dunn said. “And let us not forget that the great seal of the United States says ‘E pluribus unum.’ That means ‘from many, one.’ Every life matters no matter where you came from. No matter how you got here, no matter how you identify, you have the right to live a life that is free.”
Dunn’s legal team could be heard loudly celebrating behind closed doors. The U.S. Attorney’s Office didn’t immediately comment on the acquittal.
Jurors had deliberated for roughly 7 hours on the single charge.
Dunn’s attorneys did not argue over the facts of the case, but rather focused on whether the sandwich throw was enough to constitute an assault of an officer. The officer who was hit with the sandwich, Greg Lairmore, told jurors that colleagues had given him gag gifts after the incident, including a toy sandwich and a patch with the words “felony footlong.”
“They all think it’s funny,” Dunn’s attorney, Sabrina Shroff said of the officers in closing arguments Wednesday, citing the gag gifts that Lairmore said he put on a shelf at work.
While the officer claimed the sandwich “exploded” on his chest and left smells “of onions and mustard,” defense counsel showed a photo of the sandwich after the throw, noting that it was still in its Subway wrapping.
“A footlong from Subway could not and certainly did not inflict bodily harm,” Shroff added Wednesday, arguing that the legal requirements for the assault charge had not been met by the sandwich throw.
One juror told reporters after the verdict that she didn’t think the officer felt threatened by the sandwich and laughed when asked if she felt the sub “exploded” as the officer claimed.
Shroff said Dunn worried that night, “right or wrong,” that the large groups of federal immigration officers that had gathered were going to conduct a raid on a Latin LGBTQ nightclub he had just left.
Dunn shortly lost his job at the Justice Department following the incident, a public firing that was announced by the attorney general herself.
The trial, which lasted just shy of two days, highlighted how the U.S. Attorney for D.C., Jeanine Pirro, is willing to bring assault cases to federal court, despite how weak they may be. Also highlighted is the continued resistance D.C. residents have shown to these cases, including by a grand jury first declining to bring a harsher charge against Dunn earlier this year.
“There are a lot of people who sit on juries, and they live in Georgetown or in Northwest or in some of these better areas and they don’t see the reality of crime that is occurring,” Pirro told Fox News in late August when asked about the grand jury declining to bring charges against Dunn.
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