“He did it. He threw the sandwich.”
That’s how the protection counsel for Sean Dunn, the person who threw a sub-style sandwich at a Border Patrol officer in Washington, DC, this summer time started the federal trial in opposition to him Tuesday morning.
The United States authorities, Dunn’s lawyer Julia Gatto instructed the jury, “turned that moment, a thrown sandwich, into a criminal case. A federal criminal case charging a federal criminal offense.”
The case serves as a sure image in the backlash the Trump administration’s deployment of federal troops this summer time in DC confronted from residents. The sandwich-throwing incident additionally turned a second of resistance in the town, with spray painted posters popping up across the capital in the wake of the alleged assault.
On Tuesday, the Border Patrol officer testified about his expertise.
Greg Lairmore instructed the jury that Dunn “became really irritated and started yelling obscenities” at him and different officers that evening earlier than throwing “a subway style sandwich at me that struck me in the chest.”
“It smelled of onions and mustard,” Lairmore mentioned of the sandwich, which “exploded all over my chest.”
Before the incident and after leaving the Subway restaurant, Dunn quickly turned “red faced and enraged,” Lairmore testified, “calling me and my colleagues all kinds of names. Saying we were fascist.”
“I didn’t respond. That’s his constitutional right to express his opinion,” Lairmore, a division chief who has been with Customs and Border Protection for 23 years, mentioned.
As neither social gathering disputes the fundamental details of the case, jurors might want to decide whether or not the sandwich throwing is sufficient to convict Dunn on the misdemeanor assault cost.
“Look, I understand you may all have views of the federal law enforcement presence in DC,” Assistant US Attorney John Parron instructed the jury throughout opening statements Tuesday. “And that’s fine, we’re not trying to convince you otherwise. But respectfully, that’s not what this case is about. This case is about the fact that you can’t go around throwing stuff at people when you’re mad.”
“When we have disputes, we settle them verbally,” Parron added, concluding that Dunn threw the sandwich and “forcibly assaulted him.”
Gatto argued that the throwing of the sandwich served “as an exclamation mark at the end of a verbal outburst,” from Dunn, who was upset by the surge of federal officers in DC and the Trump administrations’ deportation efforts.
“He is not a fan. He thinks recent immigration enforcement is racist,” Gatto mentioned, including that Dunn noticed the native federal takeover of DC legislation enforcement as “fascism.”
Of the cost her consumer faces, Gatto mentioned, “bodily injury, that’s the standard.”
“They will not come close to convincing you beyond a reasonable doubt the conduct was forcible,” Gatto concluded.
A DC jury just lately acquitted a special resident who was additionally charged with assault for allegedly shifting her knee up towards an officer whereas being restrained after filming the officers as they made immigration-related arrests.
The trial, which presiding Judge Carl Nichols known as the “simplest case” in the historical past of the world, is anticipated to take not more than two days.