DC Man Sues Over His Arrest for Playing Darth Vader Music at National Guard

A Washington, D.C. man was arrested last month for following National Guard troops while “The Imperial March,” Darth Vader’s theme song, was played. Star Wars Films But now the man is suing with the help of the ACLU, because he says his First and Fourth Amendment rights were violated when he engaged in peaceful protest.

Sam O’Hara, 35, was walking in D.C.’s Logan Circle neighborhood on Sept. 11 when he saw National Guard soldiers patrolling the area. O’Hara starts playing “The Imperial March” on his phone as he walks behind them and starts filming it for him. TikTok account. But “in less than two minutes,” according to the lawsuit, Ohio National Guard member Sgt. Devon Beck turned around and threatened to call the local police to “handle” O’Hara if he didn’t stop.

O’Hara didn’t stop, so Beck did. He called the Metropolitan Police Department, who arrived and handcuffed O’Hara. He was “tightly handcuffed” for about 15-20 minutes, according to the lawsuit.

The four MPD officers who were arrested are Tiffany Brown, JM Campbell, Edward Reyes-Benigno and Alfonso Lopez Martinez. casewhich was filed with the help of the DC chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).

O’Hara “experienced significant anxiety around law enforcement and felt less safe in her surroundings,” according to the lawsuit, and the “extra-tight handcuffs” reportedly left marks on her wrists. He also had pain in his arms and shoulders the next morning, according to the suit. O’Hara has had two surgeries on his left shoulder since 2023.

The suit contains a few jokes about Star Wars, which were probably to be expected:

The law might have tolerated this kind of government behavior long ago in a galaxy far, far away. But here and now, the First Amendment prevents public officials from stopping peaceful protests, and the Fourth Amendment (including the District’s prohibition on false arrests) prevents warrantless seizures.

President Donald Trump has sent a wave of federal agents to cities he considers Democratic and has seen mixed success sending National Guard troops to cities like Portland and Chicago. Judges have flip flopped on whether Trump is allowed to do that, with some finding he can while others finding he can’t as cases move up the ladder to higher courts. As of this writing, Trump has not been authorized to deploy troops to Portland and Chicago.

But there is little question that Trump has the authority to deploy the National Guard to Washington DC because it is not a state. The president has an incredible ability to do a lot of things in DC that he really can’t do anywhere else. But the First Amendment’s free speech protections, as well as the Fourth Amendment’s protections against unreasonable searches and seizures, still apply across the country — even in D.C.

Curiously, when Gizmodo went looking for videos that O’Hara had posted on TikTok to embed in this post, we found that from the video September 11 Warning slapped: “This post may not be comfortable for some audiences. Please log in to get the most out of your experience.”

There’s nothing graphic about the video and it’s unclear why TikTok won’t allow the video to be embedded, but a local TV news outlet WUSA9 There’s also a video showing you what happened, including O’Hara’s arrest

O’Hara hasn’t stopped photographing National Guard troops around D.C. since his arrest. He has a lot of videos on his account @freedc20009.