Police in Washington, D.C., arrested a man on Sunday after discovering hundreds of explosive devices outside the Cathedral of St. Matthew the Apostle, which was holding a Mass in honor of the Supreme Court.
According to The Daily Wire, police detained 41-year-old Louis Geri of Arizona and New Jersey during the church’s annual “Red Mass,” in which a cardinal prays for the Supreme Court as it begins its new term. Justices have traditionally attended the event, but none were present on Oct. 5 due to security concerns.
According to the affidavit, police encountered Geri while clearing and securing the area for the Supreme Court event. Geri was in a green tent on the church steps at the time and allegedly informed officers, “You might want to stay back and call the federales; I have explosives.”
Geri allegedly told a member of the Metropolitan Police Department’s Bomb Squad that he knew the Red Mass was taking place before threatening to hurl a bomb into the street as a demonstration. “I have a hundred plus of them,” he allegedly stated.
Police advised Geri that if he refused to leave, they would remove him by force, to which Geri allegedly stated, “Several of your people are going to die from one of these.”
Geri reportedly held a lamp in one hand and handed officers nine pieces of paper with a manifesto headed “Written Negotiations for the Avoidance of Property Destruction via Explosive Detonation.”
The manifesto, as police reported, “revealed his significant animosity towards the Catholic Church, members of the Jewish faith, members of SCOTUS, and ICE/ICE facilities.”
The witness “then shifted his right thumb over top of the butane lighter to initiate the lighting action and stated, ‘You better have these people step away or there’s going to be deaths,'” according to the witnesses.
Geri left the tent to urinate on a tree when three officers apprehended him. Geri informed officers that he had a gadget in his pocket. A bomb squad technician searched his pocket and discovered “a vial with a white cap, which contained yellow liquid inside, and an M-device taped to the exterior.”
After arresting Geri, the bomb squad discovered “a large cache of handmade destructive devices” in the tent, according to police. Police presented an affidavit from a bomb technician on Monday, stating that they recovered more than 200 devices from D-1’s tent. Some of the vials emitted a distinct scent of acetone. Some of the liquid was found to contain nitromethane. The liquid seemed to be a mixture of substances not in their original containers. “The devices appeared to be completely functional.”
The suspect allegedly informed police in a jailhouse interrogation that he had constructed his own grenades and “planned to use the modified bottle rockets with the aluminum foil heads attached and treated in a thermite solution to allow for the detonation of the devices from a distance.”
Geri has been charged with a slew of offenses, including unlawful entry; the manufacture, transfer, use, possession, or transportation of molotov cocktails or other explosives for illegal purposes; threats to kidnap or injure a person; two counts of assault on a police officer; possession of a destructive device; the manufacture or possession of a weapon of mass destruction (hate crime); and resisting arrest.
The report states that he is being held without bond.
Last year’s Red Mass celebration was attended by three conservative justices: Chief Justice John Roberts, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett.
“In 2018, leftists were photographed protesting the mass with signs that said ‘Stop Kavanaugh,’ referring to the false smear peddled by Democrat senators that Kavanaugh was a gang rapist,” stated the report.
Geri’s arrest came just two days after a Biden-appointed judge gave a light sentence to a transgender man who attempted to assassinate Kavanaugh in 2022. Judge Deborah Boardman sentenced the perpetrator to only eight years in prison, rather than the 30 years to life indicated by sentencing standards.
According to public records analyzed by the publication, Geri has been residing in a motel in Mesa, Arizona, for several years, but she is actually from Vineland, New Jersey. Geri was convicted of indecent exposure in Arizona in 2021 and served a state jail sentence from August 2022 to May 2023, according to the report.