UC police car firebomber admits to lighting 5 fires in Berkeley and Oakland

A Pleasant Hill and Oakland resident has admitted to torching a University of California Police Department cruiser at Durant Avenue and Bowditch Street in Berkeley with a bag full of Molotov cocktails June 1 and later trying unsuccessfully to burn down the Ronald V. Dellums Federal Building in Oakland, the U.S. Attorney’s Office announced Tuesday.

Casey R. Goonan, 34, also admitted setting three other fires on UC Berkeley’s campus — on June 1 outside the East Asian Library, outside Koshland Hall on June 13 and at a construction site at the Dwinelle Annex on June 16, according to the announcement and court records.

Goonan lit the fires in protest of what they saw as mistreatment of pro-Palestine protesters by the university system and federal government, according to federal prosecutors and agents and Goonan’s attorneys.

A federal grand jury returned an indictment against Goonan in July, charging two counts of arson and possession of an unregistered firearm. Under Tuesday’s plea agreement, Goonan pleaded guilty to a single federal arson charge and conceded to a sentencing enhancement reserved for acts of terrorism, according to the announcement. Sentencing in the case is scheduled for sentencing April 8 and will likely be between five and 20 years in prison.

“Dr. Goonan will provide additional information contextualizing their actions within Dr. Goonan’s mental health struggles and the ongoing genocide in Gaza,” Potter and Wozniak wrote. (Goonan has a doctorate in African American studies from Northwestern University.)

In the midst of the arson campaign at Cal, Goonan went to the Dellums Building in the early morning hours and started throwing rocks in order to break a window to throw three Molotov cocktails inside, according to the statement. Security guards interrupted Goonan, who instead threw the explosives into a nearby planter and ignited them, according to the statement.

“Goonan admitted that these crimes were designed to influence and affect the conduct of governments by intimidation and coercion and to retaliate against governments of the United States and the state of California for their conduct,” according to a statement from U.S. Attorney Ismail J. Ramsey’s Office.

A blog post taking credit for the cruiser fire claimed it was done “in solidarity” with students at UC Santa Cruz and UCLA, as well as with Cal students who were “seizing the time and taking back Hines Hall,” a reference to a brief, pro-Palestine occupation of the university-owned former Anna Head School. It concluded, in part, “Knife to the throat of (Z)ionism.” Federal agents previously said the post was likely written by Goonan or a confederate.

“In America, we are all free to express our political views and petition the government. But we are not free to do so using violence,” Ramsey wrote in a prepared statement. “Politically motivated violence undermines our democracy, and we will continue to investigate and prosecute those who engage in it.”

Goonan has been in custody at the Santa Rita Jail in Dublin since being arrested in late June, the day after the final campus fire.