Attack suspect appeared to live a low-key life in Colorado Springs

Lisa Turnquist and Gabriel Velasco place flowers outside the Boulder County Courthouse the day after a man attacked people marching peacefully in support of Israeli hostages being held in Gaza with incendiary devices in Boulder, Colo., on Monday, June 2, 2025. Federal officials said on Monday that they had charged the man, Mohamed Sabry Soliman, with hate crimes for an attack that sent eight people to the hospital with burns and other injuries, and injured several others. Velasco’s T-shirt reads “the Jewish people live.” (Michael Ciaglo/The New York Times)

By Soumya Karlamangla and Richard Fausset

Mohamed Sabry Soliman told the police that he had tried to disguise himself as a gardener on Sunday afternoon when he headed toward a group that was walking in downtown Boulder, Colorado, to remember the hostages being held in the Gaza Strip, authorities said.

Soliman, a 45-year-old born in Egypt, carried flowers he had bought from a Home Depot store, according to a Boulder police detective. He wore an orange vest. And he had strapped on a backpack sprayer, the kind that gardeners often use to apply fertilizer or pesticide.

But the sprayer was full of gasoline.

The fiery weekend terror attack that authorities say Soliman soon carried out — in a plot he said he had hatched himself — injured 12 people, who were burned by two homemade Molotov cocktails that authorities say he threw into the crowd. Soliman yelled “Free Palestine” during the attacks, authorities said, and later told the police he “wanted them all to die” because he believed the demonstrators were “Zionists” supporting the occupation of Palestine.

Before Sunday, Soliman appeared to have lived a prosaic life in Colorado Springs, where he drove for a ride-share service and was raising five children with his wife in a worn stucco apartment amid the dry, windy suburban stretch east of town. He told police he had assembled his dangerous arsenal of explosives from everyday household goods.

But the assault resonated far beyond Boulder. It came roughly two weeks after another supporter of the Palestinian cause killed two Israeli Embassy workers in Washington, D.C., sending fresh waves of fear through Jewish communities around the world whose members were left wondering if anywhere was safe for them as Israel’s war against Hamas ground on.

Soliman was arrested minutes after the attack and was being held on a $10 million bond. Police officers found him on a patch of grass near the Boulder courthouse, shirtless and screaming at the crowd, holding two Molotov cocktails. At least 14 other Molotov cocktails were found near him in a black plastic container.

On Monday, he appeared briefly in court and listened as prosecutors said they would be presenting formal charges — for attempted murder, assault and possession of incendiary devices — at a later hearing Thursday afternoon.

Separately, federal officials, in an affidavit filed Sunday, said they sought to charge him with a hate crime.

Soliman had no known criminal history, according to an affidavit for an arrest warrant filed by a Boulder police detective. In an interview with police after his arrest, he said that he was born in Egypt, had lived in Kuwait for 17 years and moved to Colorado Springs three years ago.

According to the Department of Homeland Security, Soliman had come to the United States in August 2022 on a tourist visa and overstayed it. He had also applied for asylum and received a work permit that later expired.

President Donald Trump had stern words Monday for Soliman, not just because of his actions but because of his immigration status.

“This is yet another example of why we must keep our Borders SECURE, and deport Illegal, Anti-American Radicals from our Homeland,” Trump wrote on Truth Social, his social media platform.

Soliman told the police he had sought vengeance for what he called “his people.” But it was not clear, from court documents, whether Soliman and his family were among the Palestinian people who have been displaced by decades of war and strife in the Palestinian region.

People in Colorado Springs who knew his family members spoke highly of them. Rachel Delzell said she regularly attended the city’s sole mosque with Soliman’s wife, their oldest daughter and other women in his family. Because men and women are separated at the mosque, Delzell said, she had not met Soliman. But she said she was stunned that Soliman was suspected of violence, given the kindness of his other family members.

“I can’t believe he was a part of that,” she said. “You don’t raise a daughter like that and have a wife like that, and do something like that.”

Soliman’s daughter was profiled in The Colorado Springs Gazette as part of a series on high-achieving students who were eligible for college scholarships. In the story, the daughter said she dreamed of going to medical school. She said she had been inspired, in part, by a “difficult surgery” her father had undergone “that restored his ability to walk.”

According to the police affidavit, Soliman told officers he had been planning the attack in Boulder for “the last year” and had been waiting for his daughter to graduate from high school. Her graduation ceremony was on May 29.

Three days later, he drove to Boulder in his Toyota Prius, authorities said, and targeted a group called Run for Their Lives, which organizes walks around the world as a way to bring attention to the hostages who continue to be held by Hamas in Gaza. Soliman told police he had learned about the group after searching online.

He told police he had taken a class to obtain a permit to carry a concealed firearm but said he had been unable to buy one, the police affidavit stated, as he was not “a legal citizen.”

For the city of Boulder, the attack brought up traumatic memories of the 2021 mass shooting at a supermarket in which 10 people were killed by a gunman whose lawyers argued he was mentally ill.

“We saw burn marks on the ground, we saw Israeli flags on the ground, and we saw people wheeled off to ambulances on stretchers,” said Henry Bonn-Elchoness, 18, who was heading to a nearby restaurant when he witnessed the aftermath.

“It was sad and really scary,” he added. “We are all from Boulder and grew up here. The community of Boulder has been hit with a lot of sad and really scary events recently.”

The city, home to the University of Colorado, is surrounded by stunning natural beauty and is known as a sort of heaven for cyclists and outdoor enthusiasts. But its mellow reputation only seemed to underscore that no city is immune from the violent currents pulsing throughout the world.