Oakland ‘Bomb Plot’ Raises Questions of Entrapment | Politics and Breaking News | Oakland, Berkeley, Bay Area & California | Seven Days

Oakland ‘Bomb Plot’ Raises Questions of Entrapment | Politics and Breaking News | Oakland, Berkeley, Bay Area & California | Seven Days: The San Jose Mercury News also is reporting that the Llaneza has a history of mental illness. And it seems clear that the FBI would have known that fact, since it's readily available in public records.

This morning, Llaneza drove an SUV loaded with a chemical mixture to the Hegenberger Road bank and parked the vehicle under an overhang of the building. He then walked away from the car, met the undercover agent at a “safe distance from the bank” and tried twice to detonate the bomb by calling the cellphone attached to the explosive device. Unbeknownst to Llaneza, the chemicals were inert and the device was incapable of exploding. Federal agents then swooped in and took him into custody.

Llaneza believes recent protests in Oakland made the area an ideal target for an attack if the attempt was made to seem like the work of an “umbrella organization for a loose collection of anti-government militias and their sympathizers.” His hope, the FBI claimed, was to trigger a civil war by prompting a government crackdown after the bombing, which would in turn prompt a right-wing uprising.

After forgoing the San Francisco Federal Reserve as a target because of tight security, Llaneza allegedly proposed attacking the Bank of America branch at 303 Hegenberger Road. From December through February, Llaneza and the undercover agent conducted electronic and physical surveillance of the bank branch. Following a suggestion by Llaneza, the FBI rented a storage unit in Hayward as a preparation space and also provided a sport utility vehicle to be used in the attack. Llaneza genuinely believed the agent was a Taliban emissary, and made plans to escape to Pakistan and then Afghanistan by sea following the attack.