A New Jersey man, arrested before the annual Red Mass in Washington, DC, was found with over 200 explosives in his tent outside the venue—along with a notebook filled with vitriolic statements against ICE and the Supreme Court justices attending the Catholic service, recent court documents reveal.
Louis Geri, 41, had set up his tent at the Cathedral of St. Matthew the Apostle and reportedly warned officers, “You might want to stay back and call the federales, I have explosives,” as they approached him, according to filings obtained by the Washington Post.
While officers attempted to negotiate with him, he allegedly presented a notebook filled with his expressed disdain for the Catholic Church, Supreme Court justices, Jews, and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), as detailed in the document.
As the cathedral prepared for its annual Red Mass, which signals the start of the Supreme Court’s term, police uncovered homemade explosives within Geri’s green tent on the property.
Typically, several Supreme Court justices attend the service, but they opted to stay away due to the escalating security threat, as reported by the Catholic Standard, the official publication of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Washington.
The Metropolitan Police summoned a bomb squad to deal with Geri, who refused to vacate his tent, continuously asserting that he possessed bombs, according to the Washington Post.
He provocatively asked the sergeant, “Do you want me to throw one out, I’ll test one out on the streets?” and claimed he had “hundred-plus” explosives.
When officers indicated they would remove him by force, Geri allegedly threatened, “several of your people are gonna die from one of these.”
In an attempt to de-escalate the situation, a sergeant agreed to read what Geri had written in his notebook, which he handed over through the flap of the tent.
The notebook was labeled “Written Negotiations for the Avoidance of Destruction of Property via Detonation of Explosives,” according to court documents.
After noticing a butane lighter in Geri’s hand, the sergeant fully opened the tent flap, prompting an irate response from Geri, who reached into a bag and stated, “All right, if you want to do it, we’ll do it now.”
He then produced multiple capped vials containing a yellow liquid with taped explosives, warning her to “step away or there’s going to be deaths.” In response, police retreated and established a perimeter around the area.
Shortly after, he was handcuffed following a brief struggle when he exited the tent to urinate on some trees.
Authorities seized his extensive cache of explosives, which were turned over to the FBI for examination.
Some of the glass vials contained nitromethane, a common component in homemade explosives linked to the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, as per reports from the Washington Post.
Other items included modified bottle rockets with aluminum foil heads treated in a pyrotechnic solution, and officials noted that the devices appeared “fully functional” in court filings.
Geri faces eight charges, including manufacturing or possessing a weapon of mass destruction in connection with a hate crime. A judge has ordered him to be held without bail.
