A man protested the National Guard deployment in Washington, D.C., by following the soldiers while playing Darth Vader’s iconic opening song from the movie series “Star Wars.” After a guardsman got local police to detain him in an attempt to stop the music, he’s now suing for civil rights violations.
Sam O’Hara documented his musings on his TikTok account, at one point getting 4.4 million views and thousands of comments from users amused by him playing the instrumental song “Imperial March” from “Star Wars” while trailing behind soldiers. It didn’t amuse Ohio Guard Sgt. Devon Beck, who on Thursday, Sept. 11, asked Metropolitan Police Department officers to handle O’Hara, the Washington resident said in court papers. He’s being represented by the American Civil Liberties Union D.C. Chapter.
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Officers arrived after Beck’s call and handcuffed O’Hara. He alleged in the lawsuit they “compounded the violations” by prolonging his detainment and not loosening the handcuffs after O’Hara said they were too tight.
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“The law might have tolerated government conduct of this sort a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away,” according to the complaint. “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.”
The D.C. Attorney General’s Office, Office of the U.S. Attorney for the District of D.C. and the Justice Department didn’t immediately respond to Straight Arrow News’ requests for comment.
Michael Perloff, senior staff attorney at ACLU-DC, said that the government cannot punish people for “making them the punchline,” which O’Hara did with his protest. He said the action is protected under the First Amendment.
Man trolled troops with song
According to court papers, O’Hara started following troops patrolling D.C. streets on Friday, Aug. 29. Videos on his TikTok showed him playing the popular song through his phone or a speaker and walking across streets, parks and anywhere he saw troops.
He’s one of many people throughout D.C. who protested against National Guard deployments that President Donald Trump and his administration said was to combat a rise in violent crime. Trump has since deployed the guard to Memphis, Portland and Chicago to protect federal structures, quell protests and reduce crime. He also sent the Guard and the U.S. Marine Corps to Los Angeles.
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The “Star Wars” song “Imperial March” debuted in 1980 for “The Empire Strikes Back”, signaling when Darth Vader entered the scene.
“Over the past few months, FBI offices in all 50 states made crushing violent crime a top enforcement priority,” Trump said in mid-October. He claimed agents made 8,000 arrests of violent criminals between June and September, but didn’t share further details.
Cities’ leaders urged Trump to change course, saying their cities are safe.
O’Hara said in the lawsuit he followed the troops closely, but didn’t touch them and played the song for a few minutes at a volume only those in the area could hear. He didn’t protest them while they were actively supporting law enforcement, according to the lawsuit.
“For their part, most Guard members ignored Mr. O’Hara, and a few smiled or laughed,” according to court papers.
He allegedly repeated that same protest on Sept. 11, and drew ire from Beck, who told O’Hara that police would be contacted if he continued to follow them. O’Hara didn’t respond. MPD officers arrived on scene and detained O’Hara for about 20 minutes for allegedly harassing the soldiers. Officers told O’Hara he wasn’t being arrested, just detained.
They later released O’Hara and didn’t file charges.
Protesters combat feds with humor, costumes
O’Hara isn’t the only person to jeer military or federal officers in the past three months, nor is he the first to be detained. Rob Potylo — also known as Robby Roadsteamer — is known by some for original songs he sings to Planned Parenthood protesters.
He sang an expletive-ladden parody about Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents Tuesday, Oct. 7, in Portland to the tune of “YMCA” and other popular songs. In videos on his accounts, agents appeared to shoot a less-lethal munition at Potylo and later arrested him. Potylo told WBUR, a Boston area NPR affiliate, that he’s continuing the scheme and planning to sue ICE for First Amendment violations.
According to Potylo’s Gofundme campaign, he suffered an eye injury and is in need of surgery. He’s since returned to the Portland ICE facility, singing more parodies. DHS said in a statement to the radio station that Potylo trespassed on federal property and refused to back up when ordered. They said in the statement Potylo is an “attention starved influencer who flew all the way from Massachusetts to trespass on federal property.”
Several days later, federal agents arrested Oriana Korol, a clarinetist with the Portland-based Unpresidented Brass Band, for allegedly interfering with the arrest of a man who was fleeing from officers, local newspaper The Oregonian reported. The man allegedly ran across a street into the band members who were playing the theme song from “Ghostbusters.”
As for protest antics, inflatable costumes have become a fixture in Portland’s protests against immigration enforcement and across the country. It ramped up after videos of an officer spraying a chemical agent into the ventilation hole of a frog costume on Thursday, Oct. 2, went viral. The man inside, Seth Todd, told the Associated Press he wore the costume to “combat that specific narrative that we are violent and we are agitating.”
The footage prompted people across the country to protest Trump’s policies in various inflatable costumes. Some wore the famed frog, others a unicorn, a duck and other assortments. In one act, a hoard of protesters ditched all of their clothing for a nude bike ride, promoting the “Keep Portland Weird” motto.
“We’re going to keep having fun and keep Portland weird and safe,” Briana Nathanielsz, a protester, told the Associated Press. She received a Frankenstein costume from Operation Inflation to wear at protests.
