A hate-filled New Jersey man arrested before the annual Red Mass in Washington, DC, had at least 200 explosives in a tent outside — and a notebook declaring hatred for ICE and the Supreme Court justices who were due to arrive at the Catholic church, new court documents show.
Louis Geri, 41, had pitched his tent on the steps of the Cathedral of St. Matthew the Apostle — and allegedly told cops who approached him, “You might want to stay back and call the federales, I have explosives,” according to a filing obtained by the Washington Post.
During attempted negotiations with officers, he allegedly handed them a notebook in which he espoused hatred for the Catholic Church, Supreme Court justices, Jews and US Immigration and Customs Enforcement [ICE], according to the document.
The cathedral was preparing to celebrate its annual Red Mass, which marks the beginning of the Supreme Court’s term, when police discovered handmade explosives inside Geri’s green tent on the property.
Several SCOTUS justices typically attend the service — but stayed away as the security threat unfolded, according to the Catholic Standard, the official newspaper of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Washington.
The Metropolitan Police Department called the bomb squad on Geri, 41, who refused to leave the tent and continued to tell cops he had bombs, the Washington Post reported.
“Do you want me to throw one out, I’ll test one out on the streets?” he asked the sergeant speaking with him, adding that he had a “hundred plus” explosives.
When they told him they were going to forcefully remove him, Geri allegedly threatened “several of your people are gonna die from one of these.”
A sergeant agreed to read what Geri had written down in a notebook in an effort to de-escalate, which Geri handed over through a flap in the tent.
The notebook was titled “Written Negotiations for the Avoidance of Destruction of Property via Detonation of Explosives,” according to the document.
The sergeant opened the flap fully after noticing a butane lighter and another object in his hand, which outraged Geri, who then reached into a bag and told her, “All right, if you want to do it, we’ll do it now.”
He proceeded to pull out multiple capped vials containing yellow liquid with explosives taped to them and told her to “step away or there’s going to be deaths.” Police retreated and formed a perimeter.
He was handcuffed after a brief tussle shortly afterward when he got out of the tent to urinate on some trees.
His massive cache of devices was seized by the bomb squad and sent to the FBI for testing.
Some of the glass vials found contained nitromethane, a common homemade explosive that was used in the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, according to the Washington Post.
Others were modified bottle rockets with aluminum foil heads and treated in a pyrotechnic solution, records show. The devices appeared “fully functional,” authorities said in court documents.
Geri faces eight charges, including manufacture or possession of a weapon of mass destruction in furtherance of a hate crime. A judge has ordered he be held without bail.
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