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WASHINGTON (CN) — A Washington resident who recorded himself playing Darth Vader’s theme from “Star Wars” while following National Guard troops deployed to the nation’s capital sued the city Thursday over his arrest by Metropolitan Police officers in September.
On Aug. 11, President Donald Trump declared a crime emergency in Washington and mobilized about 800 members of the city’s National Guard. Governors from Ohio, Tennessee, West Virginia, South Carolina, Mississippi and Louisiana also sent Guard contingents, totaling around 2,400 troops.
Between Aug. 29 and Sept. 10, Sam O’Hara, 35, protested the deployment by tailing troops patrolling near the Logan Circle neighborhood with the song playing from his phone or a small speaker. O’Hara recorded the three encounters and posted them on TikTok.
“Armed National Guard should not be policing D.C. residents as we walk around our neighborhoods,” O’Hara said in a statement. “It was important to me not to normalize this dystopian occupation. This shows the danger of deploying troops onto American streets: It puts all our basic rights at risk.”
On Sept. 11, Ohio National Guard member Sergeant Devon Beck took issue with the protest, threatening to call the local police to “handle” the man if he persisted, O’Hara wrote in his lawsuit. Guard troops have not been authorized to make arrests as part of Trump’s crime emergency and instead have largely engaged in beautification projects in city parks.
When O’Hara continued, Beck called for backup. Metropolitan Police Department officers Tiffany Brown, Jim Campbell, Edward Reyes-Benigno and Alfonso Lopez Martinez arrived, putting O’Hara in handcuffs and detaining him.
O’Hara says in his complaint that Campbell accused him of harassing, assaulting or obstructing the Guard members before dismissing his assertion that he was merely protesting.
“That’s not a protest,” Campbell said. “You better define protest. This isn’t a protest. You are not protesting.”
O’Hara remained handcuffed for 15-20 minutes and was told that because he had asked to see the officers’ supervisor, he would remain detained until one arrived. However, when O’Hara said he wanted to leave immediately rather than wait while detained, the officers released him without charges.
“The law might have tolerated government conduct of this sort a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away. But in the here and now, the First Amendment bars government officials from shutting down peaceful protests, and the Fourth Amendment (along with the district’s prohibition on false arrest) bars groundless seizures,” O’Hara said.
D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser did not respond to a request for comment.
O’Hara is represented by the American Civil Liberties Union D.C. Chapter and senior staff attorney Michael Perloff.
“The government doesn’t get to decide if your protest is funny, and government officials can’t punish you for making them the punchline,” Perloff said in a statement. “That’s really the whole point of the First Amendment.”
Thursday’s lawsuit comes a day before a hearing in Washington Attorney General Brian Schwalb’s lawsuit against the Trump administration seeking an end to the “military occupation” in the city.
U.S. District Judge Jia Cobb is set to hear arguments over Schwalb’s motion for a preliminary injunction and the government’s motion to dismiss the lawsuit Friday afternoon.
In court filings last week, the Trump administration revealed that the National Guard deployment in the city could be extended into the summer of 2026, well beyond the current Nov. 30 deadline, already an extension from an initial 30-day period that would have ended Sept. 10.
According to an email from Brigadier General Leland Blanchard II, the interim commander of the Washington mission, officers should “plan and prepare for a long-term persistent presence” in the city, which could run through the “America 250” celebration.
In a supplemental memorandum, Schwalb pointed to Blanchard’s communications as proof that the National Guard’s deployment amounts to a grave “incursion on the District’s sovereignty” that “constitutes proof of an irreparable harm.”
Since deploying in Washington, Trump has sent National Guard troops to Portland and Chicago, both of which have been challenged in federal courts.
O’Hara is seeking an order that the defendants’ actions violated his First and Fourth Amendment rights and constituted a false arrest; he is also seeking damages that will be determined at a jury trial.
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