The man accused of a firebombing that injured 12 people on Boulder’s Pearl Street Mall planned the attack for over a year and initially sought to carry out a mass shooting against a group calling for the release of Israeli hostages in Gaza, law enforcement said Monday.
Mohamed Sabry Soliman, 45, took concealed carry classes and learned to shoot as he planned the attack, only switching to Molotov cocktails and a makeshift flamethrower after he could not buy a gun because of his immigration status, county investigators said in an arrest affidavit.
Police identified four additional victims in the attack on Monday, bringing the total to 12, Boulder County District Attorney Michael Dougherty said during an afternoon briefing. The four additional victims had minor injuries, Boulder Police Chief Stephen Redfearn said. The eight victims announced Sunday were all burned, and two of them remained in the hospital Monday. Officials could not say whether any of the victims were bystanders.
Soliman, an Egyptian citizen living in Colorado illegally, was charged with a federal hate crime in Sunday’s attack, according to an FBI arrest affidavit. The U.S. Department of Justice characterized the weekend incident as an “antisemitic terror attack.”
If convicted, Soliman could spend up to life in prison, Acting U.S. Attorney for the District of Colorado J. Bishop Grewell said Monday afternoon. When asked about possible terrorism charges, Grewell said his office may file additional charges in the case.
Soliman was also arrested on suspicion of 42 state felony charges, according to the Boulder County arrest affidavit. The state charges under investigation include:
- Eight counts of attempted first-degree murder after deliberation,
- Eight counts of attempted first-degree murder with extreme indifference,
- Six counts of first-degree assault of an at-risk or elderly victim,
- Two counts of first-degree assault,
- Two counts of possession of an incendiary device,
- And 16 counts of attempted possession of an incendiary device.
He faces up to 624 years in prison if convicted on all counts.
Soliman made his first court appearance virtually from the Boulder County Jail on Monday afternoon, wearing an orange jumpsuit with a bandage around his head covering both ears. Judge Nancy W. Salomone advised that he should have no contact with any of the victims under a protection order and did not change his $10 million bail.
The jail was on lockdown and inmates could not leave their cells during the hearing, which allowed deputies to monitor the courtroom and the jail’s entrance, Boulder County Sheriff’s Public Information Officer Vinnie Montez said. At least three snipers were also stationed on the roof of the jail.
Boulder County prosecutors will file additional charges later this week for the four victims identified Monday, Dougherty said. Boulder police had not encountered Soliman before Sunday and he was not on the FBI’s radar, Redfearn and Special Agent in Charge Mark Michalek said.
“We stand united in denouncing hate, terror and violence in this community,” Dougherty said Monday afternoon. “We stand united in condemning acts of antisemitism, hate and violence, and we’re also united in a strong response to this horrific attack.”
Planning the attack
Soliman drove from Castle Rock to the Pearl Street Mall armed with 18 Molotov cocktails and a backpack weed sprayer filled with gasoline that he planned to use to kill a group of demonstrators before killing himself, according to court records.
The attack happened just before the Jewish holiday of Shavuot, which began at sundown on Sunday.
The 45-year-old told investigators that he waited for a year to attack the “Zionist group” because he wanted his daughter to graduate from high school first, according to his arrest affidavit.
The group, Run for Their Lives, is part of a national movement calling for the release of Israeli hostages held by the terrorist group Hamas in Gaza. The Boulder chapter hosts a weekly walk on the Pearl Street Mall, scheduled for 1 p.m. Sunday, when Soliman attacked them outside the courthouse.
Soliman told investigators the attack was revenge because the demonstrators did not care about Palestinian hostages and supported the deaths of Palestinians, according to an affidavit.
“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,” Grewell said at the Monday afternoon briefing.
Soliman arrived at 12:55 p.m. and waited for demonstrators to reach him. He was dressed like a gardener and carried flowers he bought from Home Depot in an effort to get as close to the group as possible, investigators wrote.
Soliman threw two of the Molotov cocktails and police recovered another 16 at the scene, Dougherty said. They were made with glass wine carafes and canning jars filled with gasoline that had red rags hanging out.
“Mohamed said he only threw two at the group because he got scared and had never hurt anyone before,” federal investigators wrote in an affidavit. “He said he had to do it, he should do it, and he would not forgive himself if he did not do it.”
Soliman didn’t expect to survive the attack and sprayed himself with gasoline so that he would burn alongside his victims, police said in his arrest affidavits.
Investigators also found rags, a red gas container and paperwork with the words “Israel,” “Palestine” and “USAID” inside Soliman’s Toyota Prius, which was parked behind a church at 13th and Spruce streets, investigators wrote.
Who is the suspect?
Federal officials said Soliman was born in Egypt and lived in Kuwait for 17 years before he moved to the Colorado Springs area with his wife and five children.
He arrived in the U.S. in August 2022 and was in the country illegally after overstaying a tourist visa that expired in February 2023, federal immigration officials said. He applied for asylum in September 2022, but federal officials did not disclose any other details about his asylum case on Monday.
Soliman lived with his family in a modest townhome on a cul-de-sac east of Colorado Springs. No one answered the door on Monday morning, but officials said the family cooperated with a search warrant.
A Spider-Man bicycle with training wheels was parked on the sidewalk, and several other tricycles and toys were stacked near the front door.
Neighbors said multiple children, ranging in age from toddlers to teenagers, lived in the home with Soliman. An adult woman also lived there, multiple neighbors said.
The children often played outside in front of the row of townhouses, where gravel covers the yard. Most of the homes in the area are rentals.
The neighbors who spoke to The Denver Post declined to give their names, saying they did not want to be associated with the attack in any way. They said they only knew the family casually, just waving and saying hello if they saw each other outside.
Shameka Pruiett told the Associated Press that she knew Soliman and his family as kindly neighbors with five children, three young kids and two teenagers, who’d play with Pruiett’s kids in front of their building, share food and hellos.
But she said when she saw Soliman on video in Boulder, shirtless and holding bottles with flames licking up the grass in front of him, it was hard to recognize him.
“There had to be something deeply disturbing him, cause that is not the guy we see in the neighborhood,” said Pruiett.
An online resume under Soliman’s name said he was employed by a Denver-area health care company working in accounting and inventory control, with prior employers listed as companies in Egypt. Under education, the resume listed Al-Azhar University, a historic center for Islamic and Arabic learning located in Cairo.
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