Federal official assault: Man who threw sandwich charged with misdemeanour

Federal official assault: Man who threw sandwich charged with misdemeanour assault

Federal prosecutors have reduced charges against a man who threw a sandwich at a federal officer in Washington, after a grand jury refused to indict him on a felony assault count.Sean Charles Dunn, 37, a former justice department paralegal, went viral earlier this month after being filmed hurling a footlong submarine sandwich at a Customs and Border Protection officer near 14th and U streets. The video showed him shouting “fascists” and telling officers, “I don’t want you in my city!” before tossing the sandwich at one of them. Prosecutors initially pursued felony assault, which carries up to eight years in prison. However, grand jurors declined to return an indictment this week, prompting the US attorney’s office to refile the case as a misdemeanour charge of simple assault, punishable by up to one year behind bars, reported The New York Times.The failure to indict was striking given the near-automatic nature of the grand jury process. A well-known legal adage says prosecutors could “indict a ham sandwich.” Yet, in recent weeks, Washington jurors have rejected multiple felony cases linked to US President Donald Trump’s deployment of federal agents and National Guard troops in the capital.According to news agency AP, the Trump administration had spotlighted Dunn’s arrest, releasing a heavily produced video of armed officers arriving at his flat. Washington’s top prosecutor, Jeanine Pirro, also promoted the felony charge in a social media clip, quipping: “So there, stick your subway sandwich somewhere else.”Dunn, swiftly dismissed from his justice department role by attorney general Pam Bondi, has since been labelled “Sandwich Guy” by sections of the media and embraced by supporters as a symbol of pushback against Trump’s federal policing surge.As per AP, prosecutors faced another setback earlier this week when three separate grand juries refused to indict a woman accused of assaulting an FBI agent during an immigration protest. Her case, too, was downgraded to a misdemeanour.Judges have also expressed scepticism about some of these prosecutions. Magistrate Judge Zia M. Faruqui, in a separate case involving lawyer Paul Bryant, criticised prosecutors for detaining him, saying their request had “close to zero” chance of success.