Live Blog: The latest information on the Boulder Pearl Street Mall attacks

Acting U.S. Attorney J. Bishop Grewell announced the attacker, Muhamed Sabry Soliman, would be charged with a hate crime and that when that charge includes attempted murder, the statutory federal sentence is life in prison.

"No one should ever be subjected to violence of any kind," said Grewell, "but our laws recognize that such violence is particurlarly pernicious when a person is targeted for their race, religion or national origin."

Grewell went on to say that according to the complaint, the attacker had been planning the event for a year. The affidavit states that Soliman had found the group on the internet and decided to wait until after his daughter graduated to perform the attack.

Grewell said, "He acted because he hated what he called a Zionist group."

"He said he wanted them all to die, he had no regrets and would go back and do it again," said Grewell. He added that Soliman had tried to purchase a firearm but had been denied because he was not a citizen.

FBI Special Agent Mark Michalek said the family was cooperative during a search warrant at their home in Colorado Springs.

The suspect was not on the FBI's radar previously.

Boulder District Attorney Office Michael Dougherty said the U.S. Attorney's office will be prosecuting for hate crimes while the state office will jointly file charges with 16 counts of attempted murder in the first degree, with a possibility of facing a total of 384 years in state prison. Additionally, there are two counts of use of an incendiary device with a maximum sentence of 48 years and 16 counts of attempted use of an incendiary device with a maximum 192 years. A $10 million cash only bond has been set.

According to Boulder Police Chief Stephen Redfearn, two victims are still in the hospital. Four additional victims came forward with minor injuries.

There were a total of eight initial victims and four that came forward afterwards.

Boulder Police Chief Stephen Redfearn said they will be meeting with community leaders from the Boulder Jewish community.

Redfearn said they will be making sure the community feels safe in the coming days as several events are planned in Boulder and in the Pearl Street Mall area.

The FBI is still taking witness statements from people present at the attack or from people who may have important information.

Contact the FBI or share media files at https://tips.fbi.gov/digitalmedia/990609eb81fb4d9

The Boulder District Attorney's Office and the Boulder Police Department will hold a press conference alongside the FBI and Acting U.S. Attorney J. Bishop Grewell at 2:30 p.m. to announce state and federal charges against Mohamed Sabry Soliman.

"The Colorado Terrorist attack suspect, Mohamed Soliman, is illegally in our country," said Department of Homeland Security Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs Tricia McLaughlin on X, Monday.

Additionally she announced that the Department of Homeland Security is revamping its Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) tip line.

Witnesses said Soliman yelled “Free Palestine” as he launched the attack.

Once in custody, he told investigators “he wanted to kill all Zionist people and wished they were all dead,” that he specifically targeted the Run for Their Lives group and that he researched and planned the attack for more than a year, according to court documents.

“This act of terror is being investigated as an act of ideologically motivated violence based on the early information, the evidence, and witness accounts. We will speak clearly on these incidents when the facts warrant it,” FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino said in a post on X.

The Israel-Hamas war has inflamed global tensions and contributed to a spike in antisemitic violence in the United States. A week earlier, two Israeli Embassy staffers were shot to death in Washington, D.C., by a man who yelled “I did it for Palestine, I did it for Gaza” as he was led away by police.

Who is Soliman and what charge does he face?The Justice Department — which leads investigations into acts of violence driven by religious, racial or ethnic motivations — called the attack a “needless act of violence” and charged Soliman with a federal hate crime Monday morning.

The FBI affidavit said Soliman, of Colorado Springs, confessed to the attack and told police he would do it again.

Court records show he was scheduled to appear in state court in Boulder on Monday afternoon.

The Department of Homeland Security said Soliman filed for asylum in September 2022 and has been living in the U.S. illegally since his visa expired in February 2023.

Soliman also worked as an Uber driver and had passed the company’s eligibility requirements, which include a criminal background check, according to a spokesperson for Uber.

An online resume under Suliman's name says he was employed by a Denver-area health care company working in accounting and inventory control, with prior employers listed as companies in Egypt. Soliman listed Al-Azhar University, a historic center for Islamic and Arabic learning located in Cairo, on the resume.

"A black plastic container with a yellow top was found near where Soliman was arrested. In the black plastic container were at least fourteen unlit Molotov cocktails, comprised of glass wine carafe bottles or Ball jars containing clear liquid and red rags hanging out of the bottles. Near the black plastic container was a backpack weed sprayer, potentially containing a flammable substance. The clear liquid in the glass bottles and weed sprayer were determined to be 87 octane gasoline, which was determined to contain xylene based on a field test."

https://www.justice.gov/opa/media/1402301/dl?inline=&utm_medium=email&utm_source=govdelivery

https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-files-federal-charges-against-alleged-perpetrator-anti-semitic-terror