(I can't even make up a funnier headline lmao)Federal prosecutors on Tuesday were unable to persuade a grand jury to approve a felony indictment against a man who threw a sandwich at a federal agent on the streets of Washington this month, according to two people familiar with the matter.The grand jury’s rejection of the felony charge was a remarkable failure by the U.S. attorney’s office in Washington and the second time in recent days that a majority of grand jurors refused to vote to indict a person accused of felony assault on a federal agent. It also amounted to a sharp rebuke by a panel of ordinary citizens against the prosecutors assigned to bring charges against people arrested after President Trump’s deployment of National Guard troops and federal agents to fight crime and patrol the city’s streets.The rejection by grand jurors was particularly noteworthy given the attention paid to the case of the man who threw the sandwich, Sean C. Dunn. Video of the episode went viral on social media, senior officials talked about the case, and the administration posted footage of a large group of heavily armed law enforcement officers going to Mr. Dunn’s apartment.It remained unclear if prosecutors planned to try again to obtain an indictment against Mr. Dunn, 37, a former Justice Department paralegal. They could also forgo seeking felony charges and refile his case as a misdemeanor, which does not require an indictment to move forward.>https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/27/us/politics/trump-sandwich-assault-indictment-justice-department.html
>>1430027Mr. Dunn was initially charged on Aug. 13 in a criminal complaint accusing him of throwing a submarine sandwich at a Customs and Border Protection officer who was on patrol with other federal agents near the corner of 14th and U Streets in the northwest section of the capital, a popular part of the city filled with bars and restaurants.Before he threw the sandwich, the complaint asserts, Mr. Dunn stood within inches of the officer, calling him and his colleagues “fascists” and shouting, “I don’t want you in my city!”Mr. Dunn’s lawyer, Sabrina Shroff, declined to comment.It is extremely unusual for prosecutors to come out of a grand jury without obtaining an indictment because they are in control of the information that grand jurors hear about a case and defendants are not allowed to have their lawyers in the room as evidence is presented.But Mr. Trump’s decision to flood the streets of Washington with federal agents and military personnel who are generally not trained in conducting routine police stops has resulted in a flurry of defendants being charged with federal crimes that would typically be handled at the local court level, if they were filed at all.It has also led to an increasing number of embarrassments for federal prosecutors, who have had to dismiss weak cases or reduce the charges that defendants were facing in recent days.
>>1430028 (Cont)On Monday, for instance, prosecutors refiled a felony assault charge as a misdemeanor in the case of a woman who was accused of injuring an F.B.I. agent during a protest last month against immigration officials at the local jail in Washington.The charges were reduced against the woman, Sidney Lori Reid, after prosecutors failed not just once but three times to obtain an indictment in the case.That same day, at the request of prosecutors, a federal magistrate judge dismissed all charges against a man who was arrested at a Trader Joe’s grocery store last week for what the police said was possession of two handguns in his bag.At a hearing, the magistrate judge, Zia M. Faruqui, lambasted prosecutors for having charged the man, Torez Riley, in an apparent violation of his constitutional rights.“Lawlessness cannot come from the government,” Judge Faruqui said, according to HuffPost. “We’re pushing the boundaries here.”Mr. Dunn is scheduled to appear next week in Federal District Court in Washington for a preliminary hearing where another magistrate judge, G. Michael Harvey, will determine if there is probable cause that a crime was committed during the sandwich-throwing incident.Prosecutors typically have 30 days to secure an indictment after a defendant is arrested. If they fail to do so within that window, they either have to reduce the charges to a misdemeanor or dismiss the case altogether.OTHER SOURCES:>https://www.wusa9.com/article/news/crime/grand-jury-refuses-to-indict-dc-man-who-threw-sandwich-at-federal-officer-sean-gunn-sandwich-guy-pirro-bondi-white-house-trump-federal-surge-takeover/65-7caf99b2-dc98-4c56-83a0-534c7ca4d52f>https://reason.com/2025/08/27/looks-like-we-found-a-ham-sandwich-a-grand-jury-wont-indict/>https://www.cnbc.com/2025/08/27/feds-indictment-grand-jury-sandwich-thrower-trump-dc.html
>>1430027They literally deployed 20 cops to arrest this guy (who literally was turning himself in btw) and they couldn't even get him on a low felony. Fucking clown admin.
>>1430027>>1430030I reminds me of the recent story of ICE agents trying to detain a US citizen after mistaking him for a migrant, and when they found out he was a citizen they tried to charge him with assault just for filming them, until they realized the video was already released.https://abc7chicago.com/post/job-garcia-us-citizen-says-arrest-during-hollywood-home-depot-ice-raid-was-worth-others-got-away/16809821/
>>1430033>Guys they're not arresting citize- ACK!
>>1430033*It
>>1430030They knew they wouldn't be able to make any charges stick but they still arrested and imprisoned him anyway as an intimidation tactic.He should sue for harassment and false imprisonment.
>>1430039Oh trust me there's gonna be a lot of countersuits to this admin.
>>1430027Was it a ham sandwich? That would be an extra five years for antisemitism!
>>1430027These new Subway Sandwich ads are getting wild
They can't just let the sandwich slideGotta pump up those numbers so you can pretend Trump wasn't lying about crime being out of control. But hey, all those DC National Guard are picking up trash. Its going to be the cleanest city in the nation soon
>>1430062I want someone to compare the price of giving like, extra funding to city cleaners to the millions it costs for the national guard to do the same.Maybe DOGE can finally do their fucking jobs for once.
>>1430027There's an adage that a halfway decent prosecutor can get a jury to indict a ham sandwich.So these guys must be really shit, and also it's a fucking ridiculous case.
On the one hand, it was absolutely some form of simple battery and there's probably some technical enhancement to a felony cause it was on a LEO.On the other hand, prosecutorial discretion and jury nullification both exist for a fucking reason and any prosecutor that forgets to exercise the former absolutely deserves to be shrek'd by the latter.
>>1430074Yeah it's pretty hard to convince a jury "no no, the sandwich could've really hurt that guy in body armor".
>>1430076To be fair, It was Subway, so God knows what could have been in it.
>>1430069A grand jury specifically.It's important to remember that this was a grand jury, because the standard for them to indict someone is painfully low. The prosecution can basically show them anything they want and not anything they don't want and the only question is "given what we decided to show you and how we decided to tell you this law works, is it likely that this person committed this crime?" It's not "beyond a reasonable doubt" like a trial jury would be, it's just "is it likely?"And despite that very low bar, they said no. It's not likely at all that this guy broke that law.
