An activist who appeared to be going on a spree of arson and fire-bomb attacks on the UC Berkeley campus last summer in protest of the university's treatment of pro-Palestinian activists now faces prison time for terrorism.
Casey Robert Goonan, 34, has pleaded guilty to federal arson charges in connection with multiple incidents that occurred in June 2024 on the UC Berkeley campus, and one that occurred outside the federal building in Oakland. Goonan, a self-described "scholar activist" who had posted what appeared to be statements of responsibility for the attacks online, was indicted by a federal grand jury in July 2024 after an arrest in late June.
Goonan, who has had an address in Oakland, was staying with his parents in Pleasant Hill at the time of the arrest. According to a release from the US Attorney's Office for the Northern District of California, as part of his plea, Goonan admitted to "placing a bag containing six Molotov cocktails underneath the fuel tank of a marked University of California Police Department (UCPD) patrol car at UC Berkeley in the early morning hours of June 1, 2024, lighting the bag on fire and fleeing."
A campus surveillance camera captured the fire being lit.
He also admitted to bringing three Molotov cocktails to the Ronald V. Dellums Federal Building in Oakland on the morning of June 11 with the intent of throwing them inside. Goonan was seen throwing rocks at a window with the intent of breaking it, a plan that was thwarted by a federal security guard, and while fleeing the scene Goonan dropped the Molotov cocktails in a planter and let them on fire.
Goonan further copped to setting several smaller blazes on the UC Berkeley campus on June 1, June 13, and June 16.
Goonan holds a doctorate from Northwestern University in African American Studies, and wrote an academic paper in 2017 about the Black Panthers' newspaper, writing that the publication "offers a blueprint for U.S.-based radical organizations experimenting with the scientific, premeditated, and necessarily methodical artistry of social revolution."
In anonymous online posts found on IndyBay around the time of the UC Berkeley arsons, Goonan appears to have written messages like "EVERY SINGLE BUILDING ON THE UC BERKELEY CAMPUS DESERVES TO BE INCINERATED FOLLOWING THE UC SYSTEM'S TREATMENT OF STUDENT PROTESTORS," and "LONG LIVE THE STUDENT INTIFADA FOR PALESTINE LIBERATION. STOP THE GENOCIDE NOW. UC SYSTEM MUST DIVEST FROM ISRAEL OR FACE OUR WRATH OF REVENGE."
The fire set on June 16 was followed by the message, "this was done on father's day for all the palestinian fathers who have lost their children at the hands of the zionist and amerikkkan settler states."
Prior to these activities, as the Berkeley Scanner reported last year, Goonan was arrested in San Francisco during a protest outside an anti-trans (TERF) feminist convention that was being held in September 2023 at the Chinatown Hilton in San Francisco.
As part of Goonan's plea, he accepted a terrorism engancement to his charges, admitting that the arsons were "designed to influence and affect the conduct of governments by intimidation and coercion and to retaliate against the governments of the United States and the State of California for their conduct."
He pleaded guilty to one count of maliciously damaging or destroying property used in or affecting interstate commerce by means of fire or an explosive, and faces a minimum sentence of five years in prison.
"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,” said U.S. Attorney Ismail J. Ramsey in a statement. “Politically motivated violence undermines our democracy, and we will continue to investigate and prosecute those who engage in it.”
Goonan will face sentencing on April 8, 2025.
