Washington, D.C., teetered on the edge of catastrophe last Sunday — and whatever prevented the worst was not luck so much as the presence of alert law enforcement.
Police arrested 41‑year‑old Louis Geri outside the Cathedral of St. Matthew the Apostle on October 5, hours before the cathedral was to host its annual Red Mass — an event historically tied to the Supreme Court’s new term and, in quieter times, attended by justices.
What investigators uncovered in a tent on the cathedral steps reads like a plot outline for a nightmare: a homemade arsenal of explosive devices, vials of volatile chemicals, and a nine‑page manifesto that explicitly targeted Catholics, members of the Jewish faith, Supreme Court justices and ICE.
According to court papers, Geri wasn’t hiding his intent. When officers moved to clear the area for the ceremony, he announced, “You might want to stay back and call the federales, I have explosives,” threatened to throw a bomb into the street “as a demonstration,” and bragged that he had “a hundred plus” devices.
He handed police a document ominously titled “Written Negotiations for the Avoidance of Destruction of Property via Detonation of Explosives,” then thumbed a butane lighter as if to ignite something. When arrested, he had a vial and a taped device in his pocket. A subsequent sweep of his tent produced what a bomb technician later described as over 200 fully functional devices, with nitromethane and strong acetone odors — dangerous combinations that suggested a capacity for mass harm.
This was not idle bravado. Law enforcement says the devices included grenades, modified bottle rockets treated with thermite, and other improvised detonators intended for remote ignition.
Those details make clear the scale of the threat: a coordinated attempt to inflict mass casualties at a high‑profile religious event tied to the judiciary. In the wake of the arrest, Geri faces an array of severe charges, including possession of destructive devices and a weapon-of-mass-destruction count flagged as a hate crime.
The immediate import is simple and stark. Had police not been on site, or had Geri not been stopped when they did, the Red Mass — and potentially members of the Supreme Court or congregants — could have been the target of an unprecedented attack.
That the justices did not attend this year, for security reasons, is a grim confirmation that the threat was real and properly feared.
