By Andrew Goudsward and Jana Winter
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -A man facing a felony assault charge for throwing a sandwich at a federal agent during President Donald Trump’s crackdown on crime in Washington, D.C. worked at the U.S. Justice Department, Attorney General Pam Bondi said on Thursday.
Sean Dunn, 37, assisted lawyers on international cases in the department’s Criminal Division, a Justice Department official said.
“I just learned that this defendant worked at the Department of Justice — NO LONGER,” Bondi wrote on X. “Not only is he FIRED, he has been charged with a felony.”
Dunn has not entered a plea. His attorney had no immediate comment on the charge, which carries up to one year in prison.
The episode has received widespread attention as the Trump administration has deployed federal agents to canvass Washington neighborhoods and temporarily taken control of the city’s police department to curb what Trump has depicted as a crime emergency in the U.S. capital, though statistics show violent crime has fallen sharply since 2023.
The increased federal presence has drawn a mixed response from residents of the overwhelmingly Democratic city. Several agents on patrol in the Navy Yard neighborhood were occasionally heckled on Wednesday night, with one onlooker warning others to “hide your kids, hide your wives” and criticizing their bulletproof vests.
Dunn was charged with assaulting, resisting and impeding officers after he allegedly threw the sandwich at a U.S. Customs and Border Protection agent on Sunday night. Dunn allegedly called the officers “fascists” and yelled “I don’t want you in my city!” before “winding his arm back and forcefully throwing a sub-style sandwich” at the agent, according to a criminal complaint.
Dunn was taken into custody at the scene and admitted to throwing the sandwich, according to the charging document.
The officer did not appear to be injured, according to a video on social media.
Dunn was taken into custody again overnight on Thursday after the federal charge was filed. Dunn’s arrest was one of nine the FBI was involved in on Wednesday night in Washington, ranging from low-level drug offenses to illegal gun possession, according to a different Justice Department official.
Around midnight on Wednesday, more than a dozen agents took a man into custody in the Brightwood neighborhood for driving without a license after they pulled him over for driving with overly tinted windows.
A local resident, who identified herself as Miss Anne, said the increased law enforcement was not necessarily a bad thing.
“There’s a lot of things happening so if this makes things better they are welcome,” she said. “Does it need to be this much force? We will have to see.”
(Reporting by Andrew Goudsward and Jana Winter; Additional reporting by Sarah N. Lynch; Editing by Andy Sullivan and Andrea Ricci)
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