NEWS & POLITICS
We’re Calling It Now: Sandwich Guy Is the DC Halloween Costume of the Year
All you need is a pink collared shirt and a Subway sandwich.

WRITTEN BY DANIELLA BYCK | PUBLISHED ON SEPTEMBER 2, 2025



It’s an annual tradition at Washingtonian to dream up easy Halloween costumes ripped from local happenings for all you procrastinating nerds. (Some ghosts of headlines past include Political Patty, Commander Biden and a Secret Service agent, and the rabid fox on Capitol Hill.) Four years ago we crowned the escaped Maryland zebras “the hottest Halloween costume of 2021,” with groups donning stripes in homage to the untamable flock. This year, in the first week of September, we’re ready to call it: The DIY costume of the year is DC’s Sandwich Guy, Sean Charles Dunn.

Rising to fame for tossing a sandwich at a Customs and Border Protection officer in August, Dunn has become the definitive folk hero of the federal takeover, inspiring Banksy-style street art across the city. Federal prosecutors have charged the former Department of Justice paralegal with misdemeanor assault after a grand jury failed to indict Dunn on the initial felony charge. His image—pink collared shirt, khaki shorts, a sandwich in hand and then suddenly not in hand—is now an indelible icon of this moment in Washington.


Sandwich Guy art on K Street, Northwest. Photograph by Franziska Wild.

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