Washington, D.C. has reached a financial settlement with a local resident who claims he was illegally detained by police while using Darth Vader’s theme music as a form of protest against the presence of National Guard troops patrolling the city’s streets.
A court document filed late Thursday confirms that the plaintiff, Sam O’Hara, has agreed to drop his legal claims against the district and four Metropolitan Police Department officers within three business days of receiving payment. The exact dollar amount was not disclosed in the filing. O’Hara is represented by the American Civil Liberties Union of the District of Columbia.
In a Friday email, an ACLU spokesperson described the financial terms as “a significant amount” that O’Hara “is pleased with,” but said the specific figure would not be released in order to protect his privacy. A spokesperson for D.C. Attorney General Brian Schwalb’s office declined to offer any comment on the matter.
While O’Hara’s dispute with the district has been resolved, his legal claims against an Ohio National Guard member remain active. Attorneys for that Guard member, Sgt. Devon Beck, have asked a judge to throw out O’Hara’s claims against him.
“He was there because that was his assigned duty,” Beck’s lawyers wrote in court documents. “This was not an accidental encounter or a one-time disagreement on a public sidewalk.”
A February court filing had previously indicated that O’Hara and the district had reached a settlement “in principle,” prompting a judge to pause the case while the two sides worked out the details.
O’Hara originally filed suit against the district last October, alleging that officers violated his First Amendment right to free speech and his Fourth Amendment protection against unreasonable detention and excessive force.
The music O’Hara played — “The Imperial March,” the iconic and foreboding theme associated with Darth Vader in the Star Wars film series — served as the backdrop for his ongoing protests against the deployment of Guard members in Washington under President Donald Trump. According to his lawsuit, millions of TikTok users have watched his videos documenting his interactions with the troops.
O’Hara, an artist who also works in the hospitality industry, maintains that he did nothing to interfere with the Guard patrol during their September 11, 2025, encounter on a public street. After one of the troops called in Metropolitan Police Department officers, O’Hara was stopped and kept in handcuffs for 15 to 20 minutes before being let go without any charges filed, according to the lawsuit.
The lawsuit included a pointed Star Wars-themed line: “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.”
The Guard presence in Washington stems from an executive order Trump signed last August declaring a crime emergency in the city. In the weeks that followed, hundreds of Guard troops and federal agents joined local police in patrolling Washington’s streets — a move that sparked significant tension with residents of the heavily Democratic district.
