A self-declared "scholar activist" who campaigned for prison abolition may get firsthand experience with the prison system. Casey Goonan, 34, has been arrested for a series of arsons on the University of California at Berkeley campus, reports the San Francisco Standard.
After earning an ethnic studies degree at UC Riverside, Goonan completed a PhD in African-American Studies at Northwestern two years ago. Apparently, a white man with a doctorate in a "black" field has trouble finding work. He is unemployed and lives with his parents.
Online posts say the fires were set to retaliate against University of California police attacking pro-Palestine encampments at UC Santa Cruz and UCLA, reports the Standard.
On Sunday, an Indybay.org post claimed the pro-Palestine group Marilyn’s Daughters had looted a university supply building of “thousands of dollars,” firebombed a police car, carried out “experimental burning of dry grass hills on the interior of campus,” torched a building on the campus perimeter, and set fire to a construction site.
Palestinian Action US took credit for a fire outside Koshland Hall, saying on social media that "UCLA students were attacked last night so we retaliated with a firebomb on UCB campus.” The group threatened the entire university system with “our wrath of revenge” if it did not divest from Israel, closing with "Blessed is the flame." It's not clear if Goonan will be charged for that fire.
A thread of X posts Monday night by the Escalate Network encouraged support for anyone accused of arson, calling the firebombings "bold and heroic actions to save millions of lives” and "selfless and urgent action to stop the war.”
Palestine is not Goonan's only issue. In online articles, Goonan has described the United States as a “god-awful fascist hell hole” where social injustices are “concealed under the blinders of white supremacist American reason.”
He was arrested last year for felony vandalism and injuring two police officers at a protest of a feminist conference accused of rejecting transgender ideology.