5 ms·
Man who threw sandwich at US border agent not guilty of assault
- floren 1y ago> The jury's verdict comes after Customs and Border Patrol agent Gregory Lairmore testified that the snack "exploded all over him" and he "could smell the onions and mustard" on his uniform. [...] "I could feel it through my ballistic vest," he said of the sandwich's impact, adding that an onion string hung from his police radio and mustard stained his shirt. God, how horrifying. Maybe with time and intensive therapy he'll eventually be able to heal.
- yndoendo 1y agoThey never took photo evidence of the scene and the only captured content was from a 3rd party showing the Subway sandwich wrapped up, lying on the street. I would say Gregory Lairmore is a po' boy full of shit.
- natebc 1y ago> a po' boy full of shit Now that's a sandwich-in-the-face worthy of getting worked up about!
- spl757 1y ago"The Perjury": 10lbs of shit on a 5lb bun tossed with onions and mustard. edit: one too many words
- pxc 1y agoWow. So they even lied about the details of how the sandwich hit them.
- morkalork 1y agoIf ICE are willing to lie over a sandwich in an attempt to ruin someone's life, what else will they lie about when the stakes are higher?
- zippyman55 1y agoHe views like as a shit sandwich and the more bread he has, the less shit he needs to taste. This was embarrassing.
- gamblor956 1y agoHe must have had very sensitive skin to feel a sandwich through a ballistic vest.
- tdb7893 1y agoPeople shouldn't be throwing sandwiches at people but it's wild in the US that the most minor stuff against the police and they try to charge you with a felony but police can commit pretty much any form of assault (even on camera) and often don't even lose their job unless there's a big outcry.
- AngryData 1y agoI mean you don't get 25% of the world's total prison population by having a fair and just law enforcement system.
- jahsome 1y agoEven with an outcry, the blue wall often protects them only until it's politically untenable.
- adrr 1y agoLaw enforcement officer committed perjury on the stand since the defense presented a picture of the sandwich after the throw and it was still wrapped up. It never exploded.
- jojobas 1y agoAn attack on a cop is an attack on the state. You sure have a right to revolution but you better succeed, cause state has the right to imprison you.
- 1y ago
- ethin 1y agoThese people will literally claim that just bumping into them is "assault". Where do you think they're getting the "1000 percent increase" stats from? (For those who aren't aware, what the DHS is really trying to say is "well ,before all this started, there were just 10 assaults per year on ICE officers and now there's 100".)
- techdmn 1y agoI've read / watched a few different stories now, where what happens is the police / ICE assault a protestor, then charge the protestor with assaulting the officer and resisting arrest. You don't bump them, you attack their fists and clubs with the softer parts of your body.
- pxc 1y agoThis reads so much like The Onion, it's uncanny.
- grebc 1y agoI commented on the prior article posted that The Onion writers don’t even need to conjure a story anymore, just report the facts.
- amarant 1y agoIt's a veritable smorgasbord of trauma!
- dktalks 1y agoI was in a grand jury recently and a cop/attorney came to the supreme court of our state with a terroristic threat from a homeless person in a park who made a gun sign and said pow pow, and they wanted us to indict them.... By this standard most of the sports player in the nation should be indicted. Good news we unanimously rejected it
- NedF 1y ago[dead]
- reaperducer 1y agoMan who threw sandwich at US border agent not guilty of assault …by twelve hangry men. (Stolen from Fark)
- TZubiri 1y agoBattery?
- mickle00 1y agoIt was all bologna
- Der_Einzige 1y agoYou May Beat the Wrap, But You Can't Beat The Sub...
- mattkrause 1y agoYou can beat the wrap but you can’t beat the rye.
- sys32768 1y agoThe assault claim didn't cut the mustard, leaving a stain on the agency's reputation.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- lapetitejort 1y agoA hero strikes a zero.
- throw0101a 1y agoWhile the old saying that a good DA/prosecutor could get a grand jury to indict a ham sandwich[0][1][2][3] may still be true, conviction is another matter. Which is, in all of this, probably the coldest cut of all. [0] https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/indict_a_ham_sandwich https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/indict_a_ham_sandwich [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sol_Wachtler https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sol_Wachtler [2] https://history.nycourts.gov/biography/sol-wachtler/ https://history.nycourts.gov/biography/sol-wachtler/ [3] https://www.jdsupra.com/legalnews/a-grand-jury-would-indict-a-ham-4139800/ https://www.jdsupra.com/legalnews/a-grand-jury-would-indict-...
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- k1t 1y agoThe grand jury did not indict in this case.
- dragonwriter 1y ago> While the old saying that a good DA/prosecutor could get a grand jury to indict a ham sandwich may still be true, conviction is another matter. This was filed as a misdemeanor case, because federal felonies require a grand jury indictment, and the grand jury declined to indict when the prosecutor tried to bring felony charges. To be fair, they only tried to charge the thrower, and not the sandwich, so maybe the old saying might have held up with the right defendant here.
- CGMthrowaway 1y agoA nice affirmation of jury nullification - one of the last freedoms left in this country.
- mmooss 1y agoWas it nullification? Maybe it didn't meet the standard of guilt. The jury determined that the launching of the 12-inch deli sandwich from what the government described as “point-blank range” was not an attempt to cause bodily injury, preventing a conviction. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/11/06/us/politics/trump-sandwich-guy-verdict.html https://www.nytimes.com/2025/11/06/us/politics/trump-sandwic...
- ghuffed 1y ago[dead]
- cogman10 1y agoDouble Jeopardy [1] applies. If they had a better charge they should have brought it. You can't be tried multiple times for the same incident. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_jeopardy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_jeopardy
- mmooss 1y agoIn the US you can't be tried multiple times on the same charges for the same incident by the same government body. You can be tried by both the federal and the state governments, separately, on the same charges (that is, on equivalent federal and state charges). I think you can be tried for the same incident, by the same government body, on different charges.
- cogman10 1y ago> I think you can be tried for the same incident, by the same government body, on different charges. Yeah, reading through the wiki on it, it appears you are correct. That usually does not happen just because it's costly.
- mmooss 1y agoPer the NY Times, the jury deliberated for 7 hours. That seems like quite a long time for a simple case. I wonder what the hold-up was. They add, "The jury determined that the launching of the 12-inch deli sandwich ... was not an attempt to cause bodily injury, preventing a conviction." It seems like that couldn't have taken seven hours by itself. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/11/06/us/politics/trump-sandwich-guy-verdict.html https://www.nytimes.com/2025/11/06/us/politics/trump-sandwic...
- wat10000 1y agoI’d guess there were some “law and order” types on the jury and it took a while to convince them to acquit.
- giardini 1y agoSo now anyone can throw sandwiches at ICE agents w/o fear of retribution?
- wat10000 1y agoYou can if you don’t intend to hurt them by doing so, and can convince a jury of that.
- phantasmish 1y agoI think any time charges are over something so entirely lacking in even plausible potential (let alone actual) harm that each individual juror has suffered far, far more harm by being called to serve on the case, yeah, there's a good chance the prosecutor's going to be told by those same jurors to go fuck themselves. This never should have been anything more than something in roughly the same legal realm as a parking ticket, for that if no other reason. Instead, probably a thousand-plus person hours and god knows how much money were wasted to use the process itself as punishment... over a thrown sandwich.
- analog31 1y agoIt could easily take 7 hours to determine, empirically and with good statistics, if a sandwich could cause bodily injury.
- tptacek 1y agoThis is the good outcome; one note I had about this though is, per CNN: In one video taken from a police officer’s body-worn camera, Dunn told the officer, “I was trying to draw them away from where they were. I succeeded.” Don't say things like this! He was acquitted of assault, but he admitted on camera to a violation of 18 USC 111. (How I know this is, a friend of mine who's a trustee for our suburb was just indicted for the same thing, not over a sandwich, but for slowing down an ICE employee's car).
- mmooss 1y agoYeah, I was surprised he said that. And he worked at the time for the Department of Justice criminal division. It almost sounded like a post hoc rationalization, to make an outburt sound clever and intentional. Likely a stressful situtation to put yourself in.
- SpicyLemonZest 1y agoLike all civil disobedience, it occupies an awkward middle ground. You don't necessarily want to make prosecutors' lives easier, but your protest is a lot more powerful if you make it clear to the world that you really did violate the law, because then anyone who supports you has to acknowledge that the law is unfair.
- quantified 1y agoIf a random person throws a sandwich at you, or touches your shoulder for example to say "mind the gap", it is indeed assault under the law. Whether it rises to the importance of requiring legal sanction is, however, up to the jury.
- mmooss 1y ago> If a random person ... touches your shoulder for example to say "mind the gap", it is indeed assault under the law. You mean, if they say that with the intent of helping you? I doubt that's assault.
- 1y ago
- mmooss 1y agoFor comparison, would throwing a sandwich at a vendor get you fired from your job? Not for me, but it would be a blow to my reputation and might cost a relationship with the vendor (depending on the dollar value to the vendor). And I'd be very embarrassed.
- add-sub-mul-div 1y agoI'm embarrassed that I'm not doing as much as this man is to fight fascism. But sure, make this about sandwiches if the other subtext is too uncomfortable to face.
- ghuffed 1y ago[flagged]
- nobody9999 1y ago>Having a border is not fascism. Goodness me. Yeah! Washington, DC is right on the border! I mean WTF is wrong with people! It's so important to make sure that the border between it, Maryland and Virginia is secure! Those Virginians are comin' to steal our jerbs, eat our sandwiches (or throw them at our fearless masters!). I mean it's not like Marylanders are really human, are they?
- ghuffed 1y ago[flagged]
- comrade1234 1y agoWho's the vendor? AWS? Azure or whatever it's called now? Google cloud? You have to be more specific.
- mmooss 1y agoI mean a vendor's representative that you have a personal relationship with.
- gdulli 1y agoThe real crime is that the sandwich was probably like $16.
- atmavatar 1y agoWhere has all the prosciutto gone And where's the kosher salt? Where's the fine-chopped rosemary leaves to be a flavor catapult? --- Isn't there some olive oil and sliced provolone cheese? Slice up a large tomato And a bell pepper that's been peeled --- I need a hero, I'm holding out for a hero to snack on at night It's gotta be long, and it's gotta be fast, and it's gotta be freshly on-site
- tclancy 1y agoYour 80s homage makes me think of Opus assaulting mimes with an olive loaf.
- foxglacier 1y agoIt seems like a double standard. If you approached a random member of the public that you didn't like the look of, shouted at them that you don't want them in your city and violently threw a soft object at them, you could easily be convicted of assault and receive some minor punishment. I think most people would accept that you should be. Should people have greater rights to assault policemen than other types of people? Or should assault be legal if the victim's workmates find it funny?
- kevinh 1y agoDo you really think many people are being charged and found guilty of felony assault for throwing a sandwich at a random person? He was only charged because the guy was part of a cop-like class.
- nobody9999 1y ago>Do you really think many people are being charged and found guilty of felony assault for throwing a sandwich at a random person? He was only charged because the guy was part of a cop-like class. To put a finer point on it, he was charged because the current administration wants to chill protest against their undemocratic (small 'd') and unlawful activities. In fact, that was the point of deploying ICE/National Guard/etc. to cities in the first place -- to sow fear and limit freedom of expression/assembly.
- foxglacier 1y agoNo. That's not what I said. Though there could be a terminology difference between countries - maybe in America, assault requires intent to injure? In other countries it can be any unwanted physical contact. Looks like that's called "battery" in America. So yea I probably meant battery.
- tclancy 1y agoYes. It’s called “being held to a higher standard”. In the past, we kinda thought we were sending out best and brightest to enforce our laws. The good news is a much larger swath of the country knows better now.
- mmmBacon 1y agoMaybe the jury needed 7 hours to determine if the bread was stale enough to cause bodily harm. Perhaps the crime here is the waste of a perfectly good sandwich.
- lingrush4 1y agoThe people of DC have spoken. There's nothing wrong with throwing sandwiches at strangers in their city.
- bleeperbloop 1y agoSo is Border Patrol Officer Greg Lairmore facing any charges for lying under oath?
- bleeperbloop 1y agoSo is Border Patrol Officer Greg Lairmore facing charges for lying under oath?