Vigil held for victims of Boulder firebombing attack

BOULDER, Colo. — Hundreds of people squeezed into the Jewish Community Center in Boulder, Colo., for a vigil that featured prayer, singing and emotional testimony from a victim and witnesses of the firebombing attack in the city’s downtown, after a federal judge blocked the deportation of the suspect’s family.

Mohamed Sabry Soliman, 45, has been charged with a federal hate crime and state counts of attempted murder in Sunday’s attack on a group demonstrating for the release of Israeli hostages in Gaza. He is being held in a county jail on a $10 -million cash bond and was scheduled to make an appearance in state court on Thursday afternoon.

Witnesses say Soliman threw two Molotov cocktails at the group and yelled “Free Palestine,” and authorities say he confessed to the attack that injured 15 people.

Rachelle Halpern, who has been walking with the group since 2023, said during Wednesday evening’s vigil that she remembers thinking it was strange to see a man with a canister looking as though he was going to spray pesticide on the grass. Then she heard a crash and screams and saw flames around her feet.

“A woman stood one foot behind me, engulfed in flames from head to toe, lying on the ground with her husband,” she said. “People immediately, three or four men immediately rushed to her to smother the flames.”

Her description prompted murmurs from the audience members. One woman’s head dropped into her hands.

“I heard a loud noise, and the back of my legs burning, and don’t remember those next few moments,” said a victim, who didn’t want to be identified and spoke off camera, over the event’s speakers. “Even as I was watching it unfold before my eyes, even then, it didn’t seem real.”

The attack unfolded against the backdrop of the Israel-Hamas war, which has contributed to a spike in antisemitic violence in the United States. It happened at the beginning of the Jewish holiday of Shavuot and barely a week after a man who also yelled “Free Palestine” was charged with fatally shooting two Israeli Embassy staffers outside a Jewish museum in Washington.

Slevin, Bedayn, Santana and Golden write for the Associated Press. Golden reported from Seattle. AP reporters Eric Tucker in Washington, Heather Hollingsworth in Kansas City, Mo., Samy Magdy in Cairo, Hannah Schoenbaum in Salt Lake City and Sean Murphy in Oklahoma City contributed to this report.