A Washington, D.C., resident who protested while playing the “Imperial March” theme from “Star Wars” sued members of the National Guard and the city’s police force in federal court on Thursday, arguing that he was wrongfully arrested during a demonstration against President Trump’s deployment of troops in the nation’s capital.
Sam O’Hara, 35, was protesting by filming National Guard troops at a distance and playing what is also known as the theme song for Darth Vader and his Stormtroopers. By the time of Mr. O’Hara’s arrest, his protest had gone viral — with videos being seen by millions on TikTok.
On Sept. 11, Mr. O’Hara, 35, played the song as several guardsmen, including Sgt. Devon Beck of the Ohio National Guard, were patrolling in a Washington neighborhood. Sergeant Beck threatened to call the police to “handle” Mr. O’Hara if he continued. He did, and Sergeant Beck then called in members of the Metropolitan Police Department, who put Mr. O’Hara in handcuffs to prevent him from continuing his protest, according to the lawsuit. The police eventually released Mr. O’Hara without charging him with a crime.
Mr. O’Hara, with the assistance of the Washington, D.C., chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, is suing for compensation, arguing that the arrest violated his constitutional rights and amounted to a false arrest or imprisonment.
“The law might have tolerated government conduct of this sort a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away,” the lawsuit read, quoting from the movies. “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.”
Michael Perloff, an A.C.L.U. lawyer who is representing Mr. O’Hara in the case, said in a statement: “the government doesn’t get to decide if your protest is funny, and government officials can’t punish you for making them the punchline. That’s really the whole point of the First Amendment.”
Other Washington residents have responded to the deployment of troops with creative protests, including music and mockery on video platforms like TikTok. One stand-up comedian told jokes to a captive audience of guardsmen deployed to Washington’s Union Station (“It’s good to be here in Iraq,” he quips.) Another woman used a parked military Humvee as a prop as she pretended to look for her Uber: “I swore they said a ‘tan Toyota.’”
One video went as far as to compare the National Guard deployment to the doomed U.S. war effort in Vietnam, playing the voice of “Hanoi Hannah,” the North Vietnamese propagandist whose broadcasts tried to get U.S. troops to defect.
“It is a very good idea to leave a sinking ship,” one recording of her said, overlaid on top of footage of guardsmen collecting trash in a Washington park.
Chris Cameron is a Times reporter covering Washington, focusing on breaking news and the Trump administration.
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