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Pittsburgh man pleads to planting homemade bombs during Floyd protest

Allegheny County Jail

Pittsburgh man pleads to planting homemade bombs during Floyd protest

Matthew Michanowicz admitted on Monday that he left a bag of bombs Downtown during last year’s protests of the killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis police.

Michanowicz, 53, of Duquesne Heights, pleaded guilty in federal court to possession of an unregistered destructive device.

A grand jury had indicted him in June 2020.

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Assistant U.S. Attorney Jessica Smolar said Michanowicz planted a backpack filled with homemade molotov cocktails near PNC Plaza.

Nearly 1,000 people, mostly high school and college students, march to protest the acquittal of Michael Rosfeld in the killing of Antwon Rose II, Monday, March 25, 2019, along Liberty Avenue, Downtown.
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At the time of the indictment, former U.S. Attorney Scott Brady said Michanowicz was not a protester but an agitator intent on violence.

Ms. Smolar said city police were called to the plaza on June 1 for a report of a suspicious camouflage backpack near a bike rack under some trees. Officers found three explosive devices and smelled a foul odor, so they called in the bomb squad.

The devices were “spent OC vapor grenades,” Ms. Smolar said, referring to canisters used to hold pepper spray, or Oleoresin Capsicum. Ms. Smolar said the canisters had wicks held in place with spray foam insulation.

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Security footage from PNC showed an older man, later identified as Michanowicz, arriving at the scene on a blue bike with a bright red pouch on the handlebars and then planting the backpack. Police on patrol on June 3 saw a man with a bike matching that description and arrested Michanowicz.

Ms. Smolar said agents from the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives questioned him at police headquarters. He told them he rode the incline down from Mount Washington to check out the aftermath of the protests, then rode his bike to the spot were he planted the backpack.

A search of his house on Republic Street turned up a bundle of fuses on his workbench in the garage along with spray foam insulation and 10 camouflage backpacks like the one police found.

In the trash, agents found receipts for fuses.

The bomb squad and ATF said the bombs were improvised explosive devices filled with gasoline and capable of causing damage and death.

U.S. District Judge Donetta Ambrose said she’ll sentence Michanowicz in December. He remains in U.S. custody.

Torsten Ove: tove@post-gazette.com

First Published: August 9, 2021, 3:34 p.m.
Updated: August 9, 2021, 6:11 p.m.

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Matthew Michanowicz  (Allegheny County Jail)
Matthew Michanowicz, 52, of Pittsburgh, was arrested at Wood Street in Downtown by Pittsburgh police on June 3.  (Scott Goldsmith)
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