Background: 800 4th Street Southwest in Washington, D.C. (Google Maps). Inset: Emily Gabriella Sommer (Court documents)
The woman accused of spitting on Justice Department attorney Ed Martin was detained in Washington, D.C., for allegedly vandalizing her neighbor’s property, and she has been instructed to undergo a mental health assessment.
Emily Gabriella Summer, 32, is awaiting a trial for charges of assaulting, resisting, or obstructing a government official related to the alleged spitting incident on May 8. Meanwhile, she has been arrested twice for allegedly vandalizing private property.
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On June 9, Metropolitan Police officers responded to Capitol Park Apartments at 800 4th Street Southwest in Washington, D.C. There, they discovered a woman, identified as Sommer, “shouting from her balcony at a window that had been spray-painted,” according to an arrest affidavit.
A neighbor reportedly told police officers that Sommer “had been harassing her and spray painting her door,” writing the neighbor’s name and the word “Spy” afterward, as well as the letters “LA.” According to the affidavit, when officers went to speak with Sommer, she admitted through her closed door that she had spray painted those things on her neighbor’s door but that it was “an art project” — though the neighbor assured officers she had not given permission.
The lead officer maintained in his arrest report that since Sommer had already been arrested earlier in the week “for the same offense against the same victim,” he feared that if she was not immediately arrested, she would return to seek harm against the neighbor or her property. Sommer is said to have then agreed to exit her apartment and be taken into custody.
The next day, June 10, Superior Court Magistrate Judge Heide Herrmann ordered that Sommer undergo a preliminary screening examination by Tuesday to determine her competency given she allegedly exhibited “odd or bizarre behavior or manifestation of [a] chronic mental disorder.”
According to another court record from a witness obtained by Politico’s Kyle Cheney, Sommer did more than just spray paint her neighbor’s door. She allegedly “attack[ed]” the neighbor’s door “with a metal rod,” the report claims.
The prosecutor in the case is Assistant U.S. Attorney Jason McCullough, who was reportedly demoted within the Justice Department for his work prosecuting Proud Boys leaders and getting them sent to prison for their roles in the Jan. 6 insurrection. They were ultimately pardoned by Trump at the start of the president’s second term.
Sommer was already known to law enforcement. On May 22, she was arrested and charged for the May 8 incident when someone spat on Martin, the former interim U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia. Prosecutors alleged she later bragged about doing so and then broke her conditions of release by further targeting Martin in subsequent social media posts.
