Richmond man suspected of threatening Muslims, possessing pipe-bomb device

It started with an exchange of words, graduated to a call to police and ended with a search warrant at a home in the Northern California city of Richmond.

Police say that last week, William Celli, 55, encountered a Muslim man in passing and “threatened to harm the Muslim community,” Richmond police Lt. Felix Tan said.

Tan declined to elaborate on where Thursday’s exchange happened, but he said that after Celli allegedly threatened to harm Muslims, the man called police.

The threat triggered a deeper look into Celli, Tan said.

“I think any time you make verbal threats, there’s more underlying problems with that individual and the amount of anger expressed outward,” Tan said.

On Sunday, three days after the alleged threat, Richmond detectives and a SWAT team served a search warrant at Celli’s home on McBryde Avenue. Inside they found what appeared to be the makings of a pipe bomb, Tan said. A Walnut Creek police bomb squad detonated the device and said it was inert.

“We take all these threats seriously … especially in light of what’s going on right now,” Tan said. “And it showed we were right.”

Celli was arrested on suspicion of making criminal threats and possessing an explosive device. Records show he is being held in Contra Costa County jail. It was not immediately clear if he had been formally charged by county prosecutors.

On Monday, the San Francisco Bay Area Chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations released a statement calling for increased security at mosques and Muslim organizations, federal charges for Celli and an end to anti-Muslim political rhetoric.

“We thank law enforcement authorities for their swift action, and we will monitor this alleged case of domestic terrorism closely as it moves through the legal system,” the council’s executive director, Zahra Billoo, said in the statement.

Celli often took to Facebook to express his political views, many in support of GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump. Sometimes he’d be “ranting and raving” about Muslims on his posts, according to Maria Banks, who was a childhood friend of Celli’s.

“It wasn’t anything threatening,” she said.

But that changed when she said she noticed a picture of a metal pipe with black and red wires and a black box that looked like a timer.

“Home Depot don’t sell stuff this big here’s a crude device for you” Celli’s post read.

Banks said the picture was posted on Dec. 4, but she didn’t notice it until the next day.

“When I saw the post, I panicked,” she said in a telephone interview. “I couldn’t let it go. I didn’t want anybody getting hurt. In this age, you can’t let anything go.

“You see something, you say something, and that’s what I did,” she added.

Banks said she reported it to the Wethersfield Police Department in Connecticut, where she lives, on Dec. 6. An officer from the department followed up with her and took copies of the screenshots she had taken.

She said an officer from a law enforcement agency in California also followed up with her that same day. She said she also provided copies of the photos to the officer, but she could not recall what agency he worked for.

“They wanted to verify everything I was saying,” she said. “I told them I wanted to bring it to someone’s attention.”

Banks said she was thrown off by Celli’s rants and the device. “He wasn’t an introvert and was very popular in high school,” she said. “I don’t know what happened to him.”

She said it wasn’t until recently that she learned about Celli’s arrest and the allegations he’s facing.

“I’m shocked about the whole thing,” she said.

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