Terror Attack in Boulder
The Denver Post (“8 people set on fire in ‘targeted act of violence’ on Boulder’s Pearl Street Mall“):
Eight people marching in support of Israeli hostages held in Gaza were burned Sunday by a man wielding what authorities called a “makeshift flamethrower” and an incendiary device.
The attack happened at 1:26 p.m. on Boulder’s Pearl Street Mall, during a weekly walk organized by the city’s chapter of Run for Their Lives, which calls for the release of hostages held by the terrorist group Hamas.
Mark Michalek, special agent in charge of the FBI’s Denver field office, characterized the incident as a “targeted act of violence” and said in a Sunday evening news briefing that it’s under investigation as terrorism, echoing a statement from FBI Director Kash Patel earlier in the day.
Police arrested Mohamed Sabry Soliman, 45, of El Paso County, after bystanders pointed him out to police officers outside the Boulder County Courthouse, Michalek said.
Soliman used a makeshift flamethrower and threw an incendiary device into the crowd gathered outside the courthouse to harm them, Michalek said, adding that the suspect yelled “Free Palestine” during the attack.
Videos showed people rushing to pour water on one victim while others lay collapsed nearby.
“It’s almost like it was a gun of fire,” said Lynn Segal, who witnessed the attack. “It’s like a line of fire.”
Police and the FBI initially said six people were injured in the attack, but law enforcement officials increased that tally to eight late Sunday night.
The victims include four women and four men between the ages of 52 and 88, according to Boulder police and the FBI. Authorities initially said four people were taken to the Boulder Community Health hospital, and two others were airlifted to UCHealth University of Colorado’s burn unit in Aurora with more severe injuries.
Police arrested a shirtless man at the scene, who was shown in videos posted to social media holding glass bottles and shouting “Free Palestine” and calling to “end Zionists.”
Asked about Soliman’s affiliations with any other groups, Boulder police Chief Stephen Redfearn said the investigation – which includes the FBI – was ongoing, though he said authorities were almost certain that the suspect acted alone.
CBS News Colorado (“Attack at Boulder’s Pearl Street Mall in Colorado burns eight people, officials say; suspect in custody“):
A suspect is in custody after what the FBI is calling a “targeted act of violence” at Pearl Street Mall in Boulder, Colorado, on Sunday.
Witnesses said the suspect used a “makeshift flamethrower” and threw Molotov cocktails that burned multiple victims during a march in support of Israeli hostages, according to an FBI official. Boulder police say eight people were injured.
The suspect was identified as 45-year-old Mohamed Sabry Soliman, FBI Special Agent in Charge Mike Michalek said Sunday evening. Soliman was allegedly heard yelling “free Palestine” during the attack, according to Michalek, who said that it was “clear this is a targeted act of violence” and it is being investigated as an act of terrorism.
Soliman is an Egyptian national, government officials confirmed to CBS Colorado. He arrived in California in 2022 on a non-immigrant visa, multiple sources told CBS News. That original visa expired in Feb. 2023, the sources said. Soliman had recently been living in Colorado Springs.
Presuming initial indicators that Soliman was acting alone—likely what Max Abrahms has dubbed a “loon wolf terrorist”—are correct, this is just another sad episode of politically motivated violence that happens so often that I’ve lost track. That he’s here illegally will doubtless feed even more into the anti-immigrant rhetoric, notwithstanding that he was admitted legally and is wildly unrepresentative even of illegal immigrants. And, of course, this will feed whatever narrative about the Israel-Palestine conflict one chooses to feed.
Very glad that no one appears to have died in this attack. Certainly seems to qualify as terrorism and (unlike most things recently that have that label attached to it) actually anti-Semitic. Hopefully, given the suspects background and his targets, he will also receive an appropriate mental health evaluation, since this sort of suspect is automatically characterized as just plain evil rather than possibly mentally ill. The nature of his arrest makes him seem less like a calculated villain and more on the loon side (though of course, I may be 100% wrong on that).
You have to wonder what actually motivates someone to commit a horrendous act of terror in the name of a political cause. How has murdering or attempting to murder civilians ever been beneficial to any cause?
Everyone, the victims on down, loses and the hate grows.
@becca:
I’ve often wondered this. It may be just the desire to kill or disrupt that is masquerading under the guise of promoting a worthy cause.
Another stress point for Democrats. This one gun control. I’ve seen several X-posts advising Jews in America to go concealed carry. As more stop and consider that, they will have to question the Democratic party line.
In this case, the real question is why foreign individuals who were permitted into the country legally feel comfortable engaging in political violence on US campuses or US streets. Apparently, the US State department does little to vet those they issue Visas to.
@becca: @CSK: @JKB: My general assessment of these cases is that they’re mentally ill. They simply don’t process cause and effect in a rational way.
@James Joyner:
I think that is exactly correct. But I wouldn’t discount JKB’s point. This is what happens when this anti-Semitic stuff is tolerated or rationalized. People are people, with survival instincts.
@James Joyner: certainly mental instability plays a large part. It’s the counter-productive outcome that regularly occur in these acts that extend my thinking.
@JKB: Good point. Clearly widespread availability of firearms has made the US the envy of first world economies when it comes to murder rates. And I agree that we should have kept Robert Bowers from entering our country.
@becca:
Depends on the cause and the goal. For example, it’s gangbusters as a tactic for Israeli settlers in the West Bank.
@just nutha: which is more my point.
@becca: That’s comforting to know because you initial question suggested that all attacks on civilians are equally futile. Yes, this guy is deranged in some meaningful way;* he also is in a subset of a much larger Venn diagram.
*I’m not one to embrace notions that derangement removes or alters culpability very much. It’s good that people like me don’t serve on juries, sentencing commissions, parole boards, and so on.
@just nutha:
The legal bar for determining whether someone should be found not guilty by reason of insanity is much higher than the clinical one.
@Connor:
I suspect that the pictures and videos of dead kids in Gaza does a lot more to radicalize people than “anti-Semitic stuff” being tolerated or rationalized (knowing that your definition of antisemitism includes anti-Zionism as well as opposing war crimes)
Attacks like this are a clear, foreseeable consequence of Israel’s assault on the population of Gaza. While certainly Soliman is responsible for his actions (barring extreme mental illness), the Israeli government is also responsible. The extent that you want to apportion out blame to the responsible parties is up to the individual of course.
It also seems like a poorly targeted attack. The Netanyahu government doesn’t give a shit about the hostages. The people trying to bring attention to them are the same people saying that the Netanyahu government isn’t doing enough to try to bring the hostages home — the opposition. So Soliman attacked people who were more sympathetic to ending the Israeli war crimes in Gaza — and halfway around the world to boot, where those people were unlikely to be providing any material support to the Israeli war crimes.
I’m just saying that there were better targets, at least from Soliman’s apparent perspective.
@becca:
The Nazis goal of no Jews in Europe was certainly moved along by murdering civilians. America’s Manifest Destiny in the 1800s also benefited.
Sometimes the cause is just about killing people.
It can also work indirectly: ending WW2 by dropping nuclear bombs on Japanese cities, or dragging the US into 20 years of wars in the Middle East while tilting the country towards fascism by flying planes into the World Trade Center.
I guess this is what happens when the taco administration pulls FBI and ATF agents to help in rounding up dangerous cooks, dishwashers, construction workers, etc. attending immigration hearings and court dates. There’s no one left to look out for dangerous individuals.
@Gustopher: all very true. When the “other side” commits a random act of terror, it invariably causes sympathy for the victims and good cover to retaliate. These recent acts insure there won’t be a free Palestine any time soon. This is a tragedy for all.
@becca: I had a boyfriend who was technically “Palestinian”. He started getting involved in a Palestinian rights organization, then dropped out in disgust a few months later, saying that the leaders never failed to take the exact wrong side of any issue. (Looking at the PLO, it’s amazing how Yassir Arafat managed to consistently pick the wrong side. The man supported Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait, for heaven’s sake! The rest of the world is screaming for blood and the only thing that Arafat needs to do is deplore the invasion the same way or at least keep quiet, but noooo he has to come out in support of Hussein…)
@Gustopher: The pictures of dead Palestinians – accompanied by Hamas lies passed along unchallenged by the mainstream media – radicalizes people.
I’m from Colorado and attended school at CU, so I’m familiar with the mall – it’s one of the most-trafficked and well-known places in Boulder.
Seems this douche was premeditated in his attack and will probably spend the rest of his life in prison – Good!
As for the greater political context, it’s interesting to see how people shift depending on who the victims and perpetrators are.
You have, for example, one group of ideologues who normally see stochastic terrorism anywhere and everywhere, but not here! It’s Israel and/or the Jews to blame. The only stochastic terrorism to be found is a fear of retribution against Arabs and Palestinians, not further attacks against Jews and the Jew-adjacent.
On the other hand, you have another group of ideologues who normally argue some version of “crazy people” as the only needed explanation, who have now suddenly discovered that stochastic terrorism exists, and it’s super bad!
I could only take a small bit of the “debate” between these two sides of the same coin before unplugging in disgust. For some reason, it seems difficult for ideologues to simply condemn unjustified acts of criminal violence against innocent people without trying to contextualize them to conform to whatever their team believes.
Soliman has been charged with murder, per NBC. Apparently under Colorado law, the victim’s death does NOT have to occur.
@Fortune: Is Israel not bombing and attacking civilian centers? Do Israeli government ministers not promote ethnic cleansing?
Hamas isn’t a bunch of good people, but right now it is Israel committing the bulk of the atrocities. Don’t believe me? Count the dead. Use the lower bound estimates, if you want.
But history didn’t start on October 7th 2023 — go back further and see who is fundamentally in control of the situation, and who thought they could kick the can down the road forever instead of trying to to solve it.
@Andy:
While college kids having sit ins on campus and yelling undoubtedly have some sort of effect, I think it’s the actual news of what is happening in Gaza and the West Bank that has a greater effect.
And, yes, there will be attacks on both Arabs and Jews in the US resulting from this. There have been attacks on each group in the US for as long as I have lived and had a semi-working mind (Reagan administration or so? Doubtless before then as well), waxing and waning, but always a constant bit of background.
There will be a general waxing. And this is an easily foreseeable consequence of the Israeli government’s actions, which they likely decided they were ok with, on balance with everything else. And honestly, compared to everything else, it’s a rounding error.
It’s only the bad-faith Republicans who have suddenly embraced the concept of stochastic terrorism — everyone else has seen it for ages, and acknowledges that it does come into play here too. And those bad-faith Republicans may not even believe it, as their beliefs are extremely malleable.
@CSK:
Once again, I am reminded that I am fundamentally a conservative person. I believe in old-fashioned definitions of murder, where there are actual dead people.
On the other hand, does this open the door for prosecuting white collar crime as murder? If you swindle people out of their savings, you’re likely to be shortening their life (poor people have much less access to medical care, for instance), so we can make a case that if you reduce life spans by more than 70 years total (140 people having lifespans shortened by 6 months), you have definitely killed someone.
(My favorite statistic at one job was “lifetimes wasted” — we added up all the time people spent waiting for the UI to respond. We were wasting a few lifetimes each year)
@Gustopher:
Fine. Fine. Fine. Rationalize. This has been going on forever. Let’s just stipulate that Israel’s responses are heavy handed. How do you deal with, genteelly, an execrable Iran and their proxies?
I don’t believe for a second you would have the same attitude if your neighborhood was being shelled by Hamas…………for decades. I’m sure you love your kids and respect your neighbors. But you get to eat potato chips and watch the Panthers and Oilers……..in Israel they await the next set of missiles.
@Gustopher:
Fine. Fine. Fine. Rationalize. This has been going on forever. Let’s just stipulate that Israel’s responses are heavy handed. How do you deal with, genteelly, an execrable Iran and their proxies?
I don’t believe for a second you would have the same attitude if your neighborhood was being shelled by Hamas…………for decades. I’m sure you love your kids and respect your neighbors. But you get to eat potato chips and watch the Panthers and Oilers……..in Israel they await the next set of missiles.
“Soliman has been charged with murder, per NBC. Apparently under Colorado law, the victim’s death does NOT have to occur.”
Are you sure? I have read they jumped the gun, assuming one would die. Now they are backing off to say attempted murder, among other things. The guy is doing a great thing concerning his defense, though…………
“I’d do it again!!”
Alrighty, then.
The state rests its case, yer Anner.
@Connor:
Yes, you are correct. The charge is now attempted murder. In my own defense, I was going by what NBC said, but that’s no excuse. It sounded a little odd to me at the time I read it: How can you have a murder when the victim hasn’t died?
@Gustopher:
The incendiary rhetoric isn’t confined to college “kids.”
The attacks occurring are not exactly background. The level of anti-Semitic violence is abnormally high. Downplaying this as just normal is factually incorrect.
Interesting you place all the blame on Israeli actions, do you know something about this douchebag that others don’t regarding his motivations? I find such justifications of the attempted murders of non-Israelis for the actions of the Israeli government unconvincing, particularly when those non-Israelis were peacefully protesting a war crime, and one doesn’t really know what’s going on inside this guy’s head.
You don’t seem to understand the definition of stochastic terrorism, which is the use of mass communication to incite violence in a way that is indirect and deniable. Violence against innocents as a response to Israeli government actions is not stochastic terrorism. That excuse doesn’t even make any sense when the victims are not Israeli, are completely innocent, and are on the other side of the world.
It’s the rhetoric about “any means necessary” and similar extremist language that fits the definition. It’s language about blood-and-soil support for Palestinians in their conflict with the Jews, including adopting the mantras of the death cult called Hamas, which is inciting violence, if one believes in stochastic terrorism, that is. Language that purposely doesn’t distinguish targets and includes not merely Israelis, but Jews and the Jew-adjacent. Somehow, that kind of stochastic terrorism doesn’t warrant as much comment as “China virus” or “lab leak” or stylized crosshairs on campaign paraphernalia among certain ideologues, especially those cosplaying as pro-Palestinian “activists” here in the US.
If what these people are saying is not stochastic terrorism, then nothing is. One either believes in stochastic terrorism or one doesn’t. If one does, excusing the extremist rhetoric of one’s ideological compatriots is, at best, hypocrisy.
Personally, I’ve never been a big supporter of the concept. Extremist rhetoric and the tolerance of it certainly isn’t helpful and ought to be opposed, but I don’t believe it causes violence. There’s a reason most of the people like this douche Solimon pretty much always have some kind of mental illness or delusion, or are naturally prone to violence, despite those with an ideological ax to grind trying to turn it into something else. Normal, sane people don’t plan and decide to kill peaceful protesters on a mall in one of the most liberal cities in America because of something happening half a world away or because of rhetoric about that conflict.
Personally, I think the quality of the trolling here is going way down when the trolls have to resort to parsing the phrasing of others. Have some pride.
@Connor:
And you would have a better attitude if your neighborhood was shelled for decades by Israel.
Israel has been the main controlling power in its territory, and has faced the same basic options for the past 70 or so years:
– give up on being a Jewish state
– separate Palestinian state
– oppress Palestinians and live with the periodic blowback.
So I don’t have any real sympathy for them when they go with the third option. Forging a peace is hard, but it’s the only option that doesn’t regularly result in oppressed people escaping containment.
@Andy:
Let’s look at fatalities:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_antisemitic_incidents_in_the_United_States
2018-2019 was a much worse.
Between far right conspiracy theories about Jews controlling the world, far left conspiracy theories about Jews controlling the world, and Muslims upset about Israel, there has never been a time in my lifetime where antisemitic acts have not regularly been happening. And we could go through a similar exercise for Arabs and Muslims being targeted.
It spikes whenever there is news out of the Middle East. This is why it is easily foreseeable consequences.
I don’t place all the blame for this attack on Israel. I do think that they can foresee the easily foreseeable consequences of their actions, and that they have accepted them. The so-called Jewish state (there are a lot of non-Zionist Jews who think the current actions of Israel are repugnant) knows that there will be blowback to Jews worldwide, and they’re ok with it. So they definitely have some responsibility for an increase in attacks.
And Soliman is very clearly tying this to Israel-Palestine rather than the 7 Jews Who Rule The World, so this is almost certainly related.
@Gustopher:
Fatalities are only one measure. And it was mainly luck that the incident we’re discussing didn’t result in several fatalities. The number of anti-semitic attacks is at an all-time high and started spiking right after Hamas’ attack on Israel. This massive increase in incidents – not just in the US, but globally- isn’t normal and hasn’t been “regularly happening.”
You are still shifting the blame from the perpetrators. The notion that Israel bears responsibility for some Egyptian guy in Boulder attempting to immolate Americans in order to “free Palestine” is pretty dumb. The logic makes no sense. And attempting to shift blame is precisely part of the issues I’m describing. It’s like arguing that Imperial Japan is partly responsible for racist attacks on Japanese Americans after Pearl Harbor. Japan attacked, using your logic, knowing “that there will be blowback to Japanese worldwide, and they’re OK with it.”
My view is that the blame for criminal and terrorist acts, such as what happened in Boulder, rests entirely on the perpetrators and not disfavored third parties.
And again, none of what you’ve said addresses my original point of stochastic terrorism.
@Connor:
In Netanyahu’s case, apparently you deal with it by deliberately funding and boosting Hamas for years and years, in some crackerjack too-clever-by-half plan to sideline Palestinian and Israeli moderates and liberals and thus have rationale for holy war.
I do hope you are against the Ethnic Cleansing of African Jews by White Jews in Israel. Otherwise we might think you’re raaacist.