A former standout athlete who earned a Ph.D. from Northwestern University was sentenced to 19 years in federal prison this week for firebombing a police vehicle in Berkeley in an act of protest on behalf of Palestinians.
Casey Goonan, 35, who lived in both Pleasant Hill and Oakland, pleaded guilty earlier this year to damaging a UC Berkeley Police SUV with an incendiary device on June 1, 2024. As part of a plea agreement, Goonan also admitted to attempting to throw Molotov cocktails into a federal building in Oakland and setting other fires at UC Berkeley that same month, according to prosecutors.
Goonan is “remorseful for the harm they caused to their community,” Goonan’s lawyer, Jeff Wozniak, wrote to J.
Wozniak added that Goonan “is ready to enter a new phase as an activist inside prison. Casey’s case concluded today, but the fight for Palestinian Liberation continues.”
The sentencing comes amid rising concerns about political violence in the U.S.
U.S. District Court Judge Jeffrey White delivered the sentence, which cannot be appealed under the plea agreement. White, appointed by President George W. Bush in 2002, described Goonan as a “domestic terrorist” during the sentencing hearing on Tuesday.
Letters of support sent to the court by Goonan’s former university colleagues urged leniency, describing them as a conscientious academic (Goonan uses they/them pronouns). They played baseball and football at College Park High School in Pleasant Hill and pitched for Diablo Valley College for three years. They earned a bachelor’s in ethnic studies at UC Riverside and a doctorate in African American studies at Northwestern.
“During my time as a student, I was introduced to the cause of Palestinian liberation,” Goonan wrote in a statement to the judge dated Sept. 13. “In late 2023, the worsening genocide in Gaza left me overwhelmed with grief and frustration. I felt a profound sense of complicity.”
In January, Goonan admitted to lighting an incendiary device underneath the fuel tank of the UC Berkeley Police vehicle on June 1, 2024, and to trying to start a fire at the Ronald V. Dellums Federal Building and Courthouse in Oakland on June 11, 2024, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
“Goonan threw rocks at the building, hoping to break a window in order to throw lit Molotov cocktails inside,” the U.S. Attorney’s Office statement said. “That plan was disrupted by protective services officers; upon fleeing from the officers, Goonan placed the Molotov cocktails in a planter on the side of building and lit them on fire.”
After the firebombing of the police vehicle, a 24-page pamphlet published anonymously on the far-left website Indybay called for arson and other property destruction at Bay Area colleges and universities. It expressed strident anti-Israel and anti-American sentiment and shared details about the firebombing, which was done “to retaliate against the University of California for its support for the zionist israel settler colony,” according to the pamphlet.
“Knife to the throat of zionism. Death to amerikkka,” it said.
Titled “Operation Campus Flood,” the pamphlet called for property destruction over a six-day span from June 14 to 19, 2024, mimicking terminology used by Hamas to describe its Oct. 7, 2023, terrorist attack on Israel, called “Operation Al-Aqsa Flood.”
“Hurry comrade! The acceleration of anti-Palestinian genocide and the Israeli-Zionist war of annihilation against our Palestinian siblings must be put to stop NOW,” the pamphlet said. “Fire is quiet. Fire is quick and easy.”
Goonan was arrested on June 17, 2024.
According to court documents, Goonan temporarily joined the pro-Palestinian tent encampment at Cal in spring 2024.
Goonan said their actions were the result of poor mental health. In a letter to the court, they wrote that they were in distress because of Gaza, adding that their mental health had declined and that they had entered “what I now recognize as a manic episode.”
Goonan has bipolar spectrum disorder, type 1 diabetes and obsessive compulsive disorder, “which intensified when my diabetes is uncontrolled,” Goonan said in their letter, adding that they were hospitalized in a psychiatric facility around the time of the arsons.
“I left the psychiatric hospital against medical advice, and continued to struggle,” the letter said.
Federal prosecutors argued in a Sept. 18 court filing that Goonan’s mental health conditions “did not cause him to commit these crimes. The defendant absolutely knew right from wrong at the time of his crimes, and knew right from wrong in the months since, as he bragged about those crimes to others.”
The same filing noted that Goonan has begun multiple hunger strikes while incarcerated.
Since their arrest, Goonan has become a political activist of note in some corners of the pro-Palestinian movement. A website and affiliated social media account “Free Casey Now” has been raising money for their legal defense and sending money to Goonan’s commissary account at Santa Rita Jail.
Notwithstanding the 19-year sentence in this case, the judge has in the recent past shown sympathy to the Palestinian cause. An unusual case brought by activists after the start of the Israel-Hamas war alleged that the U.S. was complicit in a genocide. While ruling that he did not have jurisdiction over the matter, White nevertheless showed sympathy on certain points, according to the Times of Israel, and urged the Biden administration “to examine the results of their unflagging support of the military siege against the Palestinians in Gaza.”
U.S. Attorney Craig Missakian addressed Goonan’s sentencing in a statement.
“Freedom of expression and peaceful protest are deeply enshrined values in America,” Missakian said. “But the use of violence to achieve political aims — or to silence those with whom you may disagree — has no place in our community and our country.”