Eight people were hospitalized and four others sustained more minor injuries after a man with a “makeshift flamethrower” threw an incendiary device into a crowd of protestors in a mall in Boulder, Colo., who were calling for the release of Israeli hostages in Gaza.
Four women and four men between the ages of 52 to 88 who were injured in the attack were taken to Denver metro hospitals, according to Boulder police.
Two of the victims remained hospitalized as of Monday afternoon, Boulder Police Chief Stephen Redfearn said during a press conference, adding that he believed they were the two people who were flown to University Hospital Aurora on Sunday. The previous evening, Redfearn said at least one victim was in serious condition. He described the injuries resulting from the attack as consistent with those of burn victims.
Read more: Who Is the Suspect in the Colorado Attack?
Four additional victims whose injuries Redfearn described as “more minor in nature” were identified on Monday after they came forward to be interviewed, he said.
The names of the victims have not yet been released.
Elyana Funk, director of University of Colorado Boulder Hillel, a center for Jewish students, told CNN that several of the victims were well known among community members and that a Holocaust survivor in her 80s and her daughter were among those injured in the attack. Funk spoke to at least one of the other injured, a woman she said was “healing from horrible burns,” on Sunday night.
Early Monday, a spokesperson for Boulder Community Health told The New York Times that victims treated at Foothills Hospital Emergency Department had been transferred or discharged, but declined to provide additional information.
The victims were participating in a Run for Their Lives event, a weekly walk held in communities around the world to advocate for the release of hostages held by Hamas.
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Authorities arrested a suspect identified as Mohamed Sabry Soliman, 45, of El Paso County, according to the Boulder Police Department. He has been charged with sixteen state-level counts of first-degree attempted murder, as well as a number of charges related to the use and attempted use of incendiary devices. The Department of Justice has also charged him with a federal hate crime.
Soliman told police that he wanted to kill all Zionist people and could conduct another attack, according to an affidavit filed Monday. Plans for Sunday’s attack had been in motion for a year, the affidavit said Soliman told authorities.
Department of Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin identified Soliman as an undocumented immigrant who overstayed his tourism visa. He filed for asylum in September 2022 and remained after his visa expired in February 2023, McLaughlin said.
“The Colorado terrorist attack suspect, Mohamed Soliman, is illegally in our country,” McLaughlin told TIME in a statement.
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The National Counterterrorism Center is working with the FBI and local authorities to investigate the incident as a “targeted act of terrorism,” according to Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard. The suspect yelled “Free Palestine” while throwing the incendiary device into the crowd, FBI Denver Special Agent in Charge Mark Michalek said Sunday evening. Authorities found 16 unused Molotov cocktails in the vicinity where Soliman was arrested, District Attorney Michael Dougherty said on Monday.
“What the charges allege that he did was to throw Molotov cocktails a group of men and women, some of them in their late 80s, burning them as they peacefully walked on a Sunday to draw attention to Israeli hostages held in Gaza,” Acting U.S. Attorney for the District of Colorado J. Bishop Grewell said at the Monday afternoon press conference. “When he was interviewed about the attack, he said he wanted them all to die. He had no regrets, and he would go back and do it again.”
