D.C. man sues after detainment for following National Guard playing ‘Star Wars’ song – National

A man who says he was detained by police for following a National Guard patrol while playing Darth Vader’s theme song from Star Wars on his phone has sued the District of Columbia, claiming the officers violated his constitutional rights.

Sam O’Hara, 35, from Washington, D.C., filed a lawsuit on Thursday, stating that the orchestral music of The Imperial March is the soundtrack for his peaceful protests against U.S. President Donald Trump’s deployment of National Guard members in the nation’s capital.

“Given the roughly 200-year-old tradition of civilian law enforcement in the United States, Mr. O’Hara was deeply concerned about the normalization of troops patrolling D.C. neighborhoods,” the federal lawsuit says.

“And so, he began protesting the Guard members’ presence by walking several feet behind them when he saw them in the community. Using his phone and sometimes a small speaker, he played The Imperial March as he walked, keeping the music at a volume that was audible but not blaring.”

O’Hara recorded the encounters and posted the videos on his TikTok account, where millions of people have viewed them.

In his lawsuit, filed by American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) lawyers, O’Hara says he didn’t interfere with the Ohio National Guard troops, who were deployed to D.C., during their Sept. 11 encounter on a public street.

One of the troops summoned Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) officers, who stopped O’Hara and kept him handcuffed for 15 to 20 minutes before releasing him without charges, according to the lawsuit.

“In less than two minutes, Sgt. Beck turned around and threatened to call D.C. police officers to ‘handle’ Mr. O’Hara if he persisted. Mr. O’Hara continued recording and playing the music. Sgt. Beck contacted the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD),” the suit says.

“Defendant MPD Officers Brown, Campbell, Reyes-Benigno, and Lopez Martinez came to the scene and, in essence, did what Sgt. Beck had threatened, putting Mr. O’Hara in handcuffs and preventing him from continuing his peaceful protest.”

The lawsuit says that O’Hara did not “physically resist the officers or engage in an violet or physically aggressive conduct.”

“Mr. O’Hara did, however, criticize the decision to detain him and repeatedly ask why he was being arrested, whether he could go, and if he could speak with a supervisor. Officers Brown, Reyes-Benigno, and Lopez Martinez said that he was not under arrest, and Officer Reyes-Benigno stated that he was stopped for ‘harassing the National Guard,’” the lawsuit adds.

O’Hara told Brown that he wanted “to leave immediately” and “did not wish to speak with a supervisor if doing so would extend the seizure,” the suit says.

O’Hara was released without charges and has since “experienced significant anxiety around law enforcement and feels less safe in his neighborhood,” according to the legal documents.

The suit says that the law “might have tolerated government conduct of this sort a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away,” and added that 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.”

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His lawsuit says that O’Hara wanted to “encourage the public to view the deployment as a waste of tax dollars, a needless display of force and a surreal danger.”

“Mr. O’Hara brings this suit to ensure accountability, secure compensation for his injuries, and vindicate core constitutional guarantees,” the suit says.

O’Hara also sued four MPD officers and the National Guard member who called them to the scene. The suit accuses them of violating his First Amendment rights to free speech and his Fourth Amendment rights against unreasonable seizures and excessive force.

He is seeking unspecified compensatory and punitive damages.

“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.

“Instead of respecting my right to protest, police officers handcuffed me so tightly my wrists were still marked and sore the next day. This shows the danger of deploying troops onto American streets: it puts all our basic rights at risk.”

“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,” said Michael Perloff, senior staff lawyer at ACLU-D.C.

A spokesperson for the MPD told The Associated Press that the four officers named as defendants in O’Hara’s lawsuit all remain on full duty.

In August, Trump issued an executive order declaring a crime emergency in Washington. Within a month, more than 2,300 National Guard troops from eight states and the district were patrolling the city under the command of the secretary of the Army.

Trump also deployed hundreds of federal agents to assist in patrols.

— With files from The Associated Press

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