A man who says he was detained by police for following an Ohio National Guard patrol while playing Darth Vader's theme song from “Star Wars” on his phone sued the District of Columbia on Thursday, claiming the officers violated his constitutional rights. Sam O'Hara's federal lawsuit says the ominous orchestral music of “The Imperial March” is the soundtrack for his peaceful protests against President Donald Trump's deployment of Guard members in Washington, D.C. Millions of TikTok users have viewed O'Hara's videos of his interactions with troops, according to the suit, filed by American Civil Liberties Union attorneys. O’Hara, a 35-year-old Washington resident, says he didn’t interfere with the Ohio National Guard troops during their Sept. 11 encounter on a public street. One of the troops summoned Metropolitan Police Department officers, who stopped O'Hara and kept him handcuffed for 15 to 20 minutes before releasing him without charges, according to the lawsuit. “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,” his lawsuit says. O'Hara also sued four MPD officers and the Guard member who called them to the scene. The suit accuses them of violating his First Amendment rights to free speech and his Fourth Amendment rights against unreasonable seizures and excessive force. O'Hara is seeking unspecified compensatory and punitive damages. Spokespeople for Mayor Muriel Bowser's office and the police department declined to comment on the suit's claims. The MPD spokesperson said the four officers named as defendants all remain on full duty. A spokesperson for the Ohio National Guard didn't immediately respond to emails seeking comment. In August, Trump, a Republican, issued an executive order declaring a crime emergency in Washington. Within a month, more than 2,300 National Guard troops from eight states and the district were patrolling the city under the command of the secretary of the Army. Trump also deployed hundreds of federal agents to assist in patrols. Trump's law enforcement surge has inflamed tensions with residents of the heavily Democratic district. District of Columbia Attorney General Brian Schwalb has sued Trump to end it. O'Hara's lawsuit says he became “deeply concerned about the normalization of troops patrolling D.C. neighborhoods.” “To many District residents, the deployment constituted an attack on D.C.’s autonomy and a dangerous departure from the Nation’s tradition of barring troops from policing civilians,” the suit says. O'Hara had staged and recorded other “Star Wars”-themed protests against Guard deployments. The troops mostly ignored him, the suit says. On Sept. 11, O'Hara was returning home from work when he began following four armed Guard members from Ohio. Less than two minutes later, one of the troops warned him that he would summon police officers to “handle” him if he kept following them, according to the suit. The police officers who arrived minutes later accused O'Hara of harassing the troops, which he denied. They detained him without conducting any investigation and ignored his complaints that the handcuffs were too tight, the suit alleges. “Mr. O’Hara brings this suit to ensure accountability, secure compensation for his injuries, and vindicate core constitutional guarantees,” the suit says. The case is assigned to U.S. District Judge Timothy Kelly, who was nominated to the bench by Trump.

Michelino Sunseri climbed past boulders on his way to a record-breaking feat: The extreme runner reached the summit of Grand Teton, one of the highest mountains in the American West, and then rushed back down, all in less than three hours. The National Park Service, however, didn’t celebrate. Instead, it charged him with a crime. Sunseri was found guilty of a misdemeanor for spending just two minutes during the run on a prohibited trail in Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming. The remarkable solo triumph in 2024 has been overshadowed by his legal saga. “Free Michelino” stickers are on posts and benches in Jackson, Wyoming. Sunseri’s supporters, including members of Congress, are appalled by what they consider to be a glaring example of excessive enforcement by the government. But Sunseri, 33, may be getting a break. His lawyer, Alex Rienzie, said prosecutors have agreed to seek a dismissal if the runner completes 60 hours of community service and a course on wilderness stewardship. A judge expressed concern about the shift Tuesday and still would need to sign off. Another hearing was set for Nov. 18. “It is an evolution of what is right and was made to preserve prosecutive and judicial resources while upholding the best interests of the public and the justice system,” the U.S. Attorney's Office in Wyoming said. Sunseri said he's hopeful for a “rational and reasonable agreement” that puts the matter behind him. Prosecutors had repeatedly said the ban on shortcutting designated trails is on the park’s website, the park map and in other places. They insisted on pressing ahead with a two-day trial last May, despite a lack of support from officials in the new Trump administration. Joey Wilson of Salt Lake City, an ultramarathoner who designs training programs for athletes, said the significance of Sunseri’s achievement sometimes gets lost. “It’s an unbelievable thing that he accomplished — world class,” Wilson said. Boulders as big as houses Sunseri defended himself by saying he took the same route as many previous record holders on Grand Teton, including Kilian Jornet, one of the world's greatest mountain athletes, in 2012, without any blowback from the Park Service. He set out on Sept. 2, 2024, sharing the mountain with Labor Day holiday hikers. The path starts flat and wide before becoming extremely rocky on the way up. “There are boulders the size of small houses,” said Wilson, whose father was a park ranger. “You've got to use your hands. If your hands were to pop off in a couple of places, you're going to fall a long way down.” Sunseri also had to confront a series of switchbacks as the Garnet Canyon Trail zigged and zagged like a maze. On his way down, shirtless and wearing a hat backwards, he made a split-second decision that would later land him in court: He left a switchback to avoid casual hikers and possible injury, taking a path known as the Old Climber's Trail for two minutes. “I was ahead of pace,” said Sunseri, who had trained by running the mountain more than 40 times. “I knew I was going to get the record regardless of which trail I took. I didn't want to be yelling at people to get out of my way.” A small sign where he entered the trail says, “Short Cutting Causes Erosion,” while another at the other end says, “Closed For Regrowth.” Sunseri said there was no vegetation to destroy on the steep, narrow, hard-packed ground. ‘Stoked’ by his record time Later, Sunseri dropped to his knees in exhaustion at the base of the mountain. He had set a new fastest-known time on Grand Teton — “FKT” in the running community — of 2 hours, 50 minutes, 50 seconds. Sunseri had run a total of 13.3 miles (21.4 kilometers) while gaining an elevation of 7,000 feet (2,133 meters) on his way up the mountain. The summit rests at 13,775 feet (4,198 meters). “I was stoked," he recalled. “It's one of those things where every single thing has to go right — and everything did go right.” Andy Anderson didn’t bypass switchbacks during his record run in 2012, but Sunseri said he still had his blessing. They had dinner in Truckee, California, and Anderson handed over the prize: a handmade box bearing a commemorative belt buckle and listing the names of past Grand Teton record holders. Search warrants to get evidence Sunseri wrote about his epic run on social media. Those words doomed him. Federal investigators used search warrants to get access to the posts, which led to a misdemeanor charge of shortcutting a designated trail in the national park. U.S. Magistrate Judge Stephanie Hambrick found him guilty in a 51-page opinion released in September. She noted the testimony of Park Service Ranger Michelle Altizer, who said Sunseri's “actions were high profile” and that the potential to deter others was “very high and an important consideration” in citing him. Sunseri's lawyers argued that the signs on Old Climber's Trail did not explicitly prohibit entry. “The trail has been sitting in its current state for decades,” Wilson told The Associated Press. “If they really wanted to close that trail they could plant seeds over it and put a log down. Trail closed. Do not cross.” Prosecutors pushed ahead After the spring trial, emails obtained by the defense team revealed that Park Service officials in Washington had told prosecutors on the eve of trial that they were withdrawing their support. A U.S. Interior Department lawyer referred to President Donald Trump's order “fighting overcriminalization” in federal regulations. “We're continuing with the prosecution,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Nicole Romine in Wyoming wrote back. Because of the court case, Sunseri's performance on Grand Teton is not being recognized by fastestknowntime.com, a website for the best times on routes considered to have remarkable scenery or historical and cultural value around the world. In Congress, U.S. Rep. Andy Biggs, R-Ariz., is sponsoring a bill that would make willful intent a requirement for prosecuting certain crimes like Sunseri's trail-cutting misdemeanor. He called the case a “prime example of the problem of overcriminalization.”

A former Amazon delivery driver has filed a lawsuit accusing a federal civil right agency of abruptly and unlawfully abandoning her sex discrimination case and others like it following an executive order from President Donald Trump. The lawsuit filed by the former Colorado driver demands that the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission resume investigating her claims that Amazon discriminates against female drivers by failing to provide adequate bathroom breaks. The lawsuit is the latest example of workers and others scrambling to find recourse as federal agencies abandon their cases in response to Trump’s shake-up of the country’s civil rights enforcement infrastructure. The EEOC, which enforces civil rights laws in the workplace, decided last month to discharge any complaints based on “disparate impact liability,” which holds that policies that are neutral on their face can be discriminatory if they impose unnecessary barriers that disadvantage different demographic groups. The EEOC's decision came in response to an executive order in April directing federal agencies to deprioritize the use of disparate impact liability. The Trump administration argues that disparate impact assumes any racial or gender imbalance in workplaces is the result of discrimination and leads to practices that undermine meritocracy. The former driver, Leah Cross, filed a motion Tuesday asking the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to stay the EEOC’s new rule prohibiting investigations and enjoin the agency from enforcing it. The EEOC has already dropped its sole lawsuit arising from a disparate impact liability charge, a case alleging that the Sheetz convenience store chain's background check practices discriminated against Black, Native American and multiracial job applicants. Separately, the agency has dropped lawsuits on behalf of transgender workers and subjected new complaints to a higher level of scrutiny, following Trump's executive order declaring that the government would only recognize two unchangeable sexes. It's unclear how many worker complaints involving disparate impact liability or LGBTQ+ workers have been sidelined by the EEOC. In her lawsuit, Cross demanded that the EEOC, which handled more than 88,000 discrimination charges in 2024, give the court a list of the disparate impact liability charges it has shut down. The EEOC referred questions about the lawsuit to the Department of Justice, which declined to comment. Cross, who worked as a driver from August to November 2022, filed her EEOC charge two years ago, arguing that the company's delivery schedules make it nearly impossible for drivers to find time to use bathrooms. An EEOC investigator told her lawyers last month it was closing her case because of the disparate impact rule, according to the lawsuit. Amazon declined to comment on Cross' case but referred The AP to its policies around its drivers, who deliver packages in Amazon-branded vehicles but work indirectly for the company through third-party companies called Delivery Service Partners. Amazon says its technology builds routes that ensure time for two 15-minute rest breaks and a 30-minute meal break. The company also said its Amazon Delivery app provides a list for drivers to see nearby restroom facilities and gas stations. But in an interview with The AP, Cross said it was so hard for to her stop for breaks that she had to pack a Shewee — a portable urination device for women — as well as a change of pants “in case I ended up accidentally urinating on myself.” Cross' lawsuit against the EEOC argues that the agency is legally obligated to investigate all charges based on disparate impact liability, which Congress codified in the 1991 Civil Rights Act. The EEOC “isn’t allowed to throw away an entire category of charges without looking into their facts just because the president doesn’t like the type of discrimination those charges are based on,” said Karla Gilbride, an attorney at Public Citizen Litigation Group, one of the organizations that filed the lawsuit. Gilbride was the EEOC's general counsel until she was fired in January along with two Democratic commissioners in a purge that cleared the way for the Trump administration to root out diversity and inclusion programs, roll back protections for transgender workers and elevate religious rights.