Suspect arrested The man linked to the UC Berkeley arson attack is a 34-year-old doctoral student who lives in his parents’ million-dollar home and has called America a “fascist hellhole.”
California and federal law enforcement agencies announced that 34-year-old Casey Goonan was arrested Monday on suspicion of setting four counts of arson during pro-Palestinian, anti-Israel protests on the Berkeley University campus.
“The scientific, planned, and necessarily methodical art of social revolution.”
The lawyer confirmed that authorities searched Goonan’s parents’ home in Pleasant Hill at about 10 a.m. on Monday.
CalFire news release Said Goonan was booked into the Alameda County Jail on suspicion of arson and possession and use of a destructive device and was being held on $1 million bail.
San Francisco Standard report Goonan holds a doctorate in African-American studies from Northwestern University and has unearthed some far-left statements he has made in the past.
He considered himself a “scholar-activist” and said he aspired to be a professor, according to a biography published in an academic journal in 2018. Goonan will earn his doctorate in 2022 and previously studied at the University of California, Riverside, also in California, according to an Instagram post from his mother.
Later, in a different bio in 2019, he was described as “an abolitionist currently living and working in Chicago.”
In an online article, Goonan called the US a “nasty fascist hellhole” and said social injustice was “hidden beneath the blinders of white supremacist American reason,” according to the Standard.
Another article written by Goonan was titled “Defining Social Reality in a Revolutionary Way” and praised the Black Panther Party for providing a “blueprint” for the “scientific, planned, and necessarily methodical artistry of social revolution.”
The arsons occurred at the university between June 1 and June 16, including the torching of a Berkeley police vehicle. At the time, pro-Palestinian online posts claimed the attacks were a protest against U.S. support for Israel.
“This was done as further retaliation against UCPD for attacking students at UCSC and UCLA,” one post read.
“Every building on the UC Berkeley campus should be incinerated,” another post said.
Goonan’s lawyer, Jeff Wozniak, accused law enforcement of targeting his client because of his political beliefs.
“This is a political investigation,” Wozniak wrote, “focused on Mr. Goonan’s political beliefs against Palestinian freedom and the ongoing genocide in Gaza. If indicted, Mr. Goonan’s legal team will vigorously fight the charges.”
Israel is determined to take military action to flush out Hamas terrorists from the Gaza Strip after a horrific attack on civilians on October 7 killed 1,139 people and left 250 more hostages, including a US citizen.
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