Multiple people burned in apparent antisemitic attack on Boulder’s Pearl Street Mall

Updated at 11:06 p.m. on Sunday, June 1, 2025.

A number of people were attacked and burned on the Pearl Street Mall in Boulder on Sunday afternoon. Law enforcement say a man threw incendiary devices at people participating in a walk and vigil for Israeli hostages being held by Hamas.

Boulder police took a man identified as Mohamed Sabry Soliman, 45, into custody at the scene. Investigators say he yelled, “free Palestine” before attacking the walkers.

The FBI said eight people, four women and four men between the ages of 52-88, were injured — two serious enough to be flown to the burn unit at UCHealth University of Colorado Hospital in Aurora.

The first calls to 911 came just after 1:30 p.m. Sunday afternoon with reports of an attack near the Boulder courthouse. The group Run For Their Lives was finishing a peaceful walk to bring attention to the hostages.

“The initial callers indicated that there was a man with a weapon and that people were being set on fire,” said Police Chief Stephen Redfearn at a press conference. “When we arrived, we encountered multiple victims that were injured, with injuries consistent with burns and other injuries.”

Police said the attacker had a “makeshift flamethrower” and other incendiary devices.

An 11-block portion of downtown, from Broadway to 16th Street and Pine to Walnut, will remain blocked off into tomorrow as officers investigate. Officials are warning people not to fly drones or personal aircraft over the area while it is closed.

Courtesy of the Boulder Police Department

CPR News spoke with Rick Holter of Pagosa Springs, who was in a store nearby when someone said there was fire outside.

When he exited, Holter didn’t see anything aflame, although there was someone on the ground being doused by bystanders. He also saw a shirtless man holding squirt bottles and yelling.

“We watched as the police arrived a couple of minutes later and this guy, the shirtless guy, went down on the ground and was handcuffed and taken away then,” said Holter. 

Holter said the incident did not seem to have sparked a larger panic; a crowd of people on the mall watched the arrest from a distance.

Photo/David Zalubowski)

Victims appear to be from a group raising awareness of the hostages held by Hamas

The victims of Sunday’s attack were participating in an event that has gone on weekly since Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel, to bring attention to the people kidnapped and held hostage by the group. Similar groups walk weekly in cities around the globe.

“There's nothing political about what they're doing locally or internationally,” said Stefanie Clarke, co-executive director of Stop Antisemitism Colorado. “This was the first time, I know from national Run For Their Lives, that anything like this has ever happened, that any of these walks have been met with this level of violence.”

Clarke said she wants to say she’s shocked by the attack, but noted it comes just weeks after the killing of two Israeli embassy employees in Washington, D.C.

“The reason things like this are happening is because we have allowed this climate of hate to fester. And today it boiled over and this doesn't come out of nowhere,” she said. “This is part of a deeply disturbing trend of hate that has been normalized and allowed to spread.”

AP Photo/David Zalubowski

AP Photo/David Zalubowski

Boulder City Councilwoman Tara Winer has participated in past Run For Their Lives events and said several of the victims were friends of hers.

“The Boulder Jewish community is close,” she said Sunday. “We're not monolithic, but we support each other and we're close.”

Winer said she’s been cursed at and called a ‘Jewish supremacist’ during city council public comment sessions and that the level of vitriol has increased over the past six months. On Sunday she planned to go ahead with a preplanned event that night marking the Jewish holiday of Shavuot, on the topic of “How our lives have changed since Oct. 7.”

Colorado’s political leaders were quick to condemn the attack as a hate crime.

“People may have differing views about world events and the Israeli-Hamas conflict, but violence is never the answer to settling differences. Hate has no place in Colorado. We all have the right to peaceably assemble and the freedom to speak our views,” said Attorney General Phil Weiser in a statement Sunday afternoon. 

Gov. Jared Polis also echoed fears that the attacker had specifically targeted the group.

“It is unfathomable that the Jewish community is facing another terror attack here in Boulder,” Polis, who is Jewish, wrote on X, “on the eve of the holiday of Shavuot no less. Several individuals were brutally attacked while peacefully marching to draw attention to the plight of the hostages who have been held by Hamas terrorists in Gaza for 604 days. I condemn this vicious act of terrorism, and pray for the recovery of the victims.”

Swift response from around the country

Boulder’s congressman, Democratic Rep. Joe Neguse said he was horrified and that he and his wife are praying for the victims.

“Tonight, as many prepare to mark the Shavuot holiday, our Jewish community has been subjected to yet another brutal and horrific act of violence,” he wrote in a statement. “The scourge of antisemitism has metastasized across our country, and we must do more — now — to stop this hatred and violence. We stand with the Jewish community — today and always — and will be united in supporting the victims and their families, and to redoubling our efforts to stop antisemitism.”

Democratic and Republican lawmakers said they were monitoring the situation.

“Hate of any kind has no home in Colorado,” said Democratic Sen. John Hickenlooper. 

GOP Rep. Jeff Crank, from Colorado Springs, said he was “sickened,” while Rep. Brittany Pettersen said she was “horrified by the inexcusable act of terror targeting people who were peacefully demonstrating for the release of the remaining hostages in Israel.”  

CPR’s Megan Verlee, Ryan Warner and Caitlyn Kim contributed to this reporting.