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 around while playing “The Imperial March,†Darth Vader’s theme song in the Star Wars films. But now that man is suing, with the help of the ACLU, because he says his First and Fourth Amendment rights were violated while he engaged in peaceful protest.

Sam O’Hara, 35, was walking in the Logan Circle neighborhood of D.C. on Sept. 11 when he spotted National Guard troops patrolling the area. O’Hara started playing “The Imperial March†from his phone while walking behind them and started filming it for his 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 cops to “handle†him if O’Hara didn’t stop.

O’Hara didn’t stop, so that’s what Beck did. He called the Metropolitan Police Department, who came and put O’Hara in handcuffs. He remained “tightly handcuffed†for about 15-20 minutes, according to the suit.

The four MPD officers who made the arrest, Tiffany Brown, JM Campbell, Edward Reyes-Benigno, and Alfonso Lopez Martinez, are all named in the lawsuit, which was filed with help from the DC chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).

O’Hara has “experienced significant anxiety around law enforcement and feels less safe in his neighborhood,†according to the suit, and the “overly tight handcuffs†reportedly left marks on his 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 includes some jokes about Star Wars, which was probably to be expected:

The law might have tolerated government conduct of this sort a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away. 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.

President Donald Trump has sent a surge of federal agents to cities that he considers to be 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 that he can with others finding he can’t as the cases make their way up the ladder to higher courts. As of this writing, Trump has not been allowed to deploy troops to Portland and Chicago.

But there’s very little question that Trump has the ability to deploy the National Guard to Washington D.C. because it’s not a state. The president has incredible powers to do many things in D.C. that he really can’t do elsewhere. But the free speech protections of the First Amendment, as well as the protections from unreasonable search and seizure in the Fourth Amendment, still apply to the entire country—even in D.C.

Curiously, when Gizmodo went to find the videos that O’Hara has posted to TikTok in order to embed them in this post, we found that the video from Sept. 11 had been slapped with the warning: “This post may not be comfortable for some audiences. Log in to make the most of your experience.â€

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

O’Hara hasn’t stopped filming National Guard troops around D.C. since his arrest. There are plenty of videos at his account @freedc20009.