‘Sandwich Guy’: How a thrown sub made one man a resistance icon in Trump’s DC

Where protest movements take hold, symbols of resistance soon follow.

In Washington, since the Trump administration has taken over the city’s police force and ordered the National Guard to patrol the streets, that symbol has taken the form of a person who flung a footlong sub.

His name, colloquially, is “Sandwich Guy.”

Sandwich Guy’s real name is Sean Charles Dunn, a DC resident and former Department of Justice employee who was captured on video hurling a footlong at a federal officer and now faces a felony charge. A video of the incident, posted on Instagram under the account @bigap4l, quickly went viral.

It shows Dunn (prior to the lob heard ’round the District) pointing and shouting at officers crossing an intersection in a popular nightlife area. “F... you, fascists,” he yelled, then chanted “shame” before turning and walking away from the officers. “I don’t want you in my city,” he screamed at them. Minutes later, he returned, kept on shouting, and chucked his sandwich - salami, The Washington Post confirmed - before attempting to flee on foot. Days later, 20 federal agents cuffed him at his front door.

Jeanine Pirro, US attorney for the District of Columbia, said in a video posted on X last Wednesday that Mr Dunn would be charged with a felony, which is punishable by up to eight years in prison. A day later, Attorney General Pam Bondi said in an X post that Mr Dunn was also fired from his Justice Department job. “This is an example of the Deep State we have been up against for seven months as we work to refocus DOJ,” she wrote.

Mr Dunn did not respond to requests for comment, and his lawyer, Sabrina Shroff, declined to comment.

A week after the sandwich was slung, Mr Dunn’s likeness has popped up around the city and on social media. Memes and art have flooded DC accounts. Protesters have held Subway sandwiches to the sky at protests in a symbol of defiance. And, yes, you can now buy a shirt.

Protest art is nothing new, especially in Washington. It permeated the city’s streets during demonstrations in 2020 following the murder of George Floyd; “Black Lives Matter” was sprawled down two blocks of 16th Street NW in thick yellow paint, protest signs with names of police brutality victims were entered in the DC Public Library’s local history collection, and the phrase “I can’t breathe” was sprayed in local alleyways and scribbled on posters.

But DC artists have also shown a zanier side when it comes to political statements. Recall the poop statue, the swirly doo pile that topped a replica of Representative Nancy Pelosi’s (D-California) desk, or its follow-up, the 8-foot-tall Dictator Approved statue with, its golden thumbs-up squashing the Statue of Liberty’s crown, both placed on the National Mall.

This time, one poster that nods to Sandwich Guy, plastered on buildings in Adams Morgan, Dupont Circle, Union Market and other popular neighbourhoods, spoofs street artist Banksy’s Flower Thrower. The piece, originally seen in the West Bank, depicts a man winding up his arm to throw a bouquet of flowers instead of, say, a grenade. Around DC, the flowers are replaced by a hoagie.

“Whoever came up with that transposition, I mean, that’s a brilliant piece of street art,” said Jeffrey Ian Ross, a criminologist at the University of Baltimore specializing in graffiti and street art. “And it will be one of several. When somebody writes the history of this period, that will definitely be one of the iconic images that comes out of it.”

To Professor Ross, the incident was a “perfect storm” for virality. (The only detail that could have improved it, he said, was if Dunn threw a food more closely associated with DC, like a half-smoke from Ben’s Chili Bowl.) For one, there was the irony of Mr Dunn’s employment - not only in a federal office, but for a federal criminal agency, he said. There was the felony charge, which he called an “overcharge,” that heightened public attention.

And perhaps most importantly, there was the fact that the incident was textbook slapstick: a thwacking sandwich, a flat-footed police chase, a close-up of the discarded projectile, still enclosed in a Subway wrapper.

“Let’s be honest,” said Rochester-based artist Adam Goldfarb, “nobody wants to waste a sandwich. But looking at this administration, the cruelty, the corruption, the disregard for basic democratic values and societal norms, it feels like, so often, there’s nothing we can do. So I totally understand this, ‘We just need to do something,’ and you’ve got a sandwich in your hand.”

Mr Goldfarb, who lived in the DC-area for 15 years, is now selling shirts he designed as a tribute to the incident. On one, a cartoon hoagie, over the word “resist,” wears an eye patch. He wanted to create a character “who you could tell had seen some things and had had enough.” He hasn’t sold any yet.

Lorraine Hu, a hobbyist linoleum and woodblock printer who lives in Northern Virginia, usually makes art referencing Dungeons and Dragons and other fantasy games. Last week, she joked to her husband that she should sell, on her Etsy store, art related to Sandwich Guy. Her design? The DC flag, three stars over two lines replaced by subs.

So far, she’s sold over $US3300 worth of merch on her Etsy site, including T-shirts, tote bags, pins and digital prints. She has donated that money to Miriam’s Kitchen, Capital Area Food Bank, Food Not Bombs DC and other area organizations. To Ms Hu, the design is resonating with people because of “how surreal and objectively not harmful the act of throwing a sandwich is.”

“In a normal world, yes, throwing a sandwich at a police officer or law enforcement officer would be disrespectful, but in the grand scheme of things, it shouldn’t be something that you would be locked away for,” she said. “So I think this little innocuous symbol of a sandwich, yeah, the surreal nature of it is probably why everyone feels so strongly about it as a symbol.”

Professor Ross agrees. To him, the art is a critical part of the resistance movement at play.

“The battle’s not going to be fought by graffiti or street art or public art alone, but it’s definitely an important, contextual way for people to interpret what’s going on,” Professor Ross said. “And I think the incident sort of draws out just how silly this policy decision from the White House is.”

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