An attack on marchers promoting awareness of Israeli hostages in Gaza is an act of terrorism that injured 6 people, federal authorities said Sunday evening in Boulder, Colorado.
A suspect was arrested at the scene. Witnesses told authorities he had shouted “Free Palestine,” while using an incendiary device to throw flames at the demonstrators.
The injured range in age from 67 to 88. Two law enforcement sources had said earlier that one was in critical condition. They were at or near a weekly demonstration to support awareness of Israeli hostages still held in Gaza by Hamas militants.
Mark D. Michalek, special agent in charge of the FBI’s Denver office, said the man taken into custody by Boulder police used “a makeshift flamethrower” and an incendiary device that he threw.
FBI Director Kash Patel called the incident “a targeted terror attack” on X.
The state’s attorney general, Phil Weiser, whose mother was born in a concentration camp and whose grandparents survived the Holocaust, characterized the attack as appearing to be “a hate crime given the group that was targeted.”
Weiser said in the same statement Sunday afternoon that his office was ready to support local prosecutors when the time comes to file any possible charges.
The group Run for Their Lives — Boulder has been holding the demonstrations fairly regularly, sometimes weekly, since Thanksgiving 2023, following the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel, the group has said.
Boulder Police Chief Stephen Redfearn said the suspect in custody had suffered minor injuries that required hospitalization. Michalek later identified him as Mohamed Sabry Soliman, 45.
Redfearn described what dispatchers were told about the attack in front of the historic Boulder County Courthouse at 1:26 p.m.: “There was a man with a weapon and … people were being set on fire.”
Though he didn’t provide the number of casualties, Redfearn said they include some with possibly life-threatening injuries. “There are a range of injuries from very serious to minor,” he said.
At least one person is in critical condition, two senior law enforcement officials said.
The suspect’s name was not released. People were being asked to stay away from downtown Boulder as police checked out a vehicle that may have been associated with the attack, Redfearn said.
“The area is not safe yet,” he said.
He described the location, Pearl Street Mall and adjoining public space outside the county courthouse, as being popular with pedestrians on weekends. “There were a lot of people out,” Redfearn said.
“This was a beautiful Sunday afternoon in downtown Boulder on Pearl Street, and this act is unacceptable,” he said.
He said FBI agents were at the scene assisting police with the investigation.
FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino echoed Patel’s assessment, saying on X, “We are investigating this incident as an act of terror, and targeted violence. All of the necessary assets will be dedicated to this investigation.”
A joint statement from multiple Boulder Jewish organizations and congregations did not address a possible motive. But it did note that the Jewish community has experienced similar events in recent memory.
“When events like this enter our own community, we are shaken,” the organizations said. “Our hope is that we come together for one another.”
“Our hearts go out to those who witnessed this horrible attack, and prayers for a speedy recovery to those who were injured,” the statement read.
Redfearn said it’s too early to say whether the group supporting the release of hostages was specifically targeted or whether it was an act of terrorism.
“It’s way too early to speculate motive,” he said.
According to a notice for a February event by Run for Their Lives: “This is an ongoing event. We will continue to walk until all hostages are released.”
Run for Their Lives said in a media kit that it “started for the sole reason of advocating for the release of the hostages. … We set our principles very specifically to be a safe, quiet, peaceful, inclusive of all religions, non-political global initiative.”
Group members in Boulder did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
More than 250 hostages were taken during and after the Oct. 7 attack on Israel, and a few were already being held by the militant group Sunday. Following multiple waves of releases and several deaths, 23 were believed to be alive.
Brooke Coffman was walking down Pearl Street on her lunch break Sunday when she saw a commotion near the courthouse. Worried someone was “getting beat up,” she approached the area.
Then, “I saw this big fire go up,” Coffman told NBC affiliate KUSA of Denver.
Coffman said she called 911 as she rushed toward the fiery scene.
She said she saw two women “rolling around a little bit” in their underwear after having stripped out of their burning clothes with “really bad burns all up on their legs.” Another woman nearby, also with burns on her legs, was screaming.
Coffman could barely make out the face of one of the women, she said, choking up, adding the woman’s hair was burned off.
“It just wasn’t a good scene,” Coffman said.
Others nearby rushed to the scene with jugs of water, dousing the victims, Coffman said. She said that she saw at least seven people down, mostly older women, but that she heard there were more victims, including children.
She said she saw a shirtless man, presumably the suspect, screaming while he waved a glass bottle that contained a liquid.
Social media video of the immediate aftermath of the attack, including the police response, shows a man without a shirt holding what appears to be a clear bottle with a white top in each hand, shouting, standing away from people and shaking the bottles as he paced.
“I know it’s Boulder, it’s Pearl Street, some stuff happens … but you just don’t really think it’s going to happen right here, you don’t think it’s something you’re going to see, so many people hurt” and someone do that to other people, Coffman told KUSA.
