DC man files lawsuit after being arrested for playing ‘Darth Vader Theme’ while trailing National Guard

WASHINGTON — A Washington resident filed a lawsuit Thursday after he was handcuffed and briefly detained last month for protesting members of the National Guard patrolling Washington neighborhoods playing “Imperial March” from the “Star Wars” franchise.

In a complaint filed in federal court, lawyers for Sam O’Hara, 35, of Washington, said he regularly protested the presence of the National Guard by walking several yards behind them and playing the march, also known as the “Darth Vader Theme,” from “The Empire Strikes Back,” the second film in the “Star Wars” series, when he saw them in the community.

“Using his phone and sometimes a small speaker, he would play The Imperial March while walking, keeping the music at an audible but not blaring volume,” O’Hara’s attorneys from the American Civil Liberties Union said in the lawsuit. “Mr. O’Hara recorded the encounters and posted the videos to his TikTok account, where millions of people have seen them.”

President Donald Trump deployed members of the National Guard to Washington in August to try to combat crime in the city. He also ordered the deployment of National Guard troops to Los Angeles; Portland, Oregon; and Chicago – but not without legal challenges.

O’Hara’s attorneys said in the lawsuit that on Sept. 11, a member of the Ohio National Guard turned around while their client was playing music and recording and threatened to call the Metropolitan Police. The guard member followed through on his threat a few minutes later, according to the complaint.

When police arrived, O’Hara’s lawyers wrote, they handcuffed him and prevented him from continuing to protest.

“The law could have condoned such governmental conduct a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away,” the lawsuit says, referencing the opening text of the “Star Wars” franchise. “But here and now, the First Amendment prohibits government officials from stopping peaceful protests, and the Fourth Amendment (along with the District’s ban on false arrests) prohibits baseless seizures.”

The two officers who arrived said O’Hara was not under arrest, according to the lawsuit. Instead, they told him he had been arrested for “harassment against the National Guard,” the complaint states.

In a public incident report that police provided to NBC News, an officer wrote that O’Hara “was subsequently discharged without further incident.”

Reached for comment Thursday, the police department and National Guard both said they do not comment on pending litigation.

Tensions ran high as federal law enforcement and National Guard troops flooded into Washington. In August, a man who worked for the Justice Department at the time was charged with a misdemeanor for throwing a sandwich at a federal agent. He pleaded not guilty.