Still Life with Robin: Now that we have a prosecutor who can't indict a ham sandwich....

 by Peggy Robin

I'm among the vast majority of DC residents who cheered when our Trump-appointed prosecutor proved herself unable to get a DC grand jury to indict the man who threw the sandwich at a federal law enforcement agent. She wanted him charged with a felony that carried a possible 8-year prison term.

Poster of "Sandwich Man" in Adams Morgan
Photo by Peggy Robin

But I do want to qualify my reaction: It's based entirely on the hypocrisy of an administration that pardons -- and applauds -- those convicted of the January 6 2021 assault on police officers with weapons like flagpoles, heavy fire extinguishers, bear spray, and pieces of furniture, causing hundred of injuries, some serious and a few even contributing to a later death.

As to the sandwich tosser's action itself -- nothing to cheer about. Call me an old fuddy-duddy, but I'm flat-out against throwing anything at anyone -- and especially not at any of the young men and women who find themselves deployed to DC (ironically, coming from the states with some of the worst crime rates, particularly from meth and fentanyl dealing -- and still worse death rates among the users of the illegal drugs. The Guard troops are here with little training and no clear sense of what their purpose is. (And their orders may well be illegal, to boot).

I just wish the sandwich tosser, instead of yelling "fascist" at the agents or the troops deployed here, had approached them with kindness and even empathy for their situation.

I say this based on my own experience in crowds facing hostile police and federal officials.

I'm part of the anti-war generation of boomers that protested the Vietnam War in the '60s and early '70s.. I marched in so many marches alongside thousands and thousands of others -- a few of whom not only opposed the US intervention in Vietnam, as I did, but who called our troops "baby killers" and "warmongers." I believe that was wrong then, and I'm sorry to see some people here repeating the mistake. 

So if you see the National Guard on duty around town, don't shout at them. Tell them you wish they could go home to their families. And yes, offer them a sandwich. Or maybe a flower?

Image from Wikipedia: The Flower Power photograph by Bernie Boston,

taken during the March on the Pentagon, October 21, 1967

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Still Life with Robin is posted on the Cleveland Park Listserv and on All Life Is Local on Saturdays.