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The 23-year-old man arrested in connection with an explosive device that injured Oakland police officers during a July march had handed the device to a 13-year-old and let him do the dirty work, an Oakland police official said.
Lt. James Beere on Thursday detailed the months-long investigation that led police to suspect Giovonni Gaines, who was arrested Nov. 1.
There were two demonstrations that combined on the evening of July 23, Beere told The Chronicle. One was a march honoring the life of Nia Wilson, who had been stabbed to death on the MacArthur BART Station platform a day earlier. The second was a protest of a rumored meeting of white nationalists in downtown Oakland.
The events started out peacefully, but later erupted after a group mistakenly identified a man as a white nationalist and attacked him near 19th Street and Broadway. Officers were attempting to rescue the man and clear a path for evacuation when the explosive device was thrown in their direction, Beere said.
Beere, who caught a glimpse of the device before it detonated, described it as an altered M-1000 — a powerful firecracker — with an elongated body wrapped in copper sheeting with plastic caps on either end.
Video footage of the detonation captured by KGO-TV shows a flash and a plume of white smoke in the middle of a crowd of police officers and marchers, sending pedestrians fleeing and covering their
ears.
The explosion injured about 10 officers, including Beere, who was struck with shrapnel.
Beere said investigators had few leads at the beginning of the investigation. But after compiling footage from body-worn cameras and security cameras they were able to get make out a juvenile with a “distinctive description.”
The juvenile was taken into custody and confessed immediately, Beere said.
The boy said the adult suspect had handed him the device amid the chaos and instructed him to “throw it,” Beere said, in an account that was corroborated by security footage. The boy knew Gaines’ street name, and detectives began to zero in on the adult suspect.
Gaines’ attorney did not return a request for comment Thursday evening.
Gaines was booked on suspicion of multiple felonies, including possession of a destructive device, destructive device near a populated location, use of a bomb to destroy property and exploding a bomb causing bodily injury, jail records show.
He is being held on $3 million bond in Santa Rita Jail in Dublin. Gaines is scheduled for a bail hearing on Thursday at the Alameda County Courthouse.