The leader of the Boulder group recounts the ‘panic’ as the attack develops: ‘They are literally in flames’
When his friends caught in front of his eyes in Boulder, Colorado, Omer Shache felt “panic immediately” and said he knew he had to help extinguish the flames.
Shache, co-leader of Run for their lives in Boulder, told ABC News that he was standing in front of the group outside the Boulder court on Sunday afternoon when a man threw a Molotov cocktail under his legs.
“They are literally in flames,” he said about Walk participants. “I don’t know if I can express it enough, literally in flames and trying to get my friend out of the fire.”
The tactical teams enter position after an incident that the FBI is investigating on June 1, 2025 in Boulder, Colorado.
Chet Strange/Getty Images
“Once someone could help her, she was getting to the [attacker] And I try, I don’t know what I thought, but maybe to address it … but we saw that he approaches a container full of bottles and realized that it is not a good idea, so we took a step back, “Shache said.” We are trying to keep people far possible, although some of them could not walk. One of them was on the floor where the fire is. “
Shache said passers -by intervened with bottles of water to try to help off the fire.
An Israeli flag is in a flower bed while the caution tape blocks a deserted Pearl street in the scene of an attack on protesters who ask for the launch of Israeli hostages in Gaza, in Boulder, Colorado, June 1, 2025.
Eli Imadali/AFP through Gettty Imagesages
The authorities are reviewing a recently released video that shows chaos and panic in the sequelae of the attack.
The suspect, Mohamed Soliman, 45, was arrested after allegedly throwing Molotov cocktails in an “act of terrorism” during the Pro-Israel demonstration, authorities said.
The law agents stop a suspect, after an attack that wounded several people, in Boulder, Colorado, June 1, 2025.
@Opusobscurax/x through Reuters
Twelve people were injured, authorities said. Two victims remain in the hospital.
Soliman, who supposedly disguised himself as a gardener during the attack, told the police that “he wanted to kill all the Zionists and wished everyone was dead,” judicial documents said. “Soliman declared that he would (perform an attack) again.”
“He said that this had nothing to do with the Jewish community and was specific in the Zionist group that supported the murders of people in their land (Palestine),” documents said.
Mohamed Soliman’s reserve photo, 45, the man suspected of carrying out an “act of terrorism” during a Pro-Israel demonstration in Boulder, Colorado, June 1, 2025.
Boulder Police Department
Shache said that running for their lives has a peaceful walk every Sunday to raise awareness about the hostages that remain in Gaza for Hamas since October 7, 2023.
Participants include those who are “Jews and non -Jews, right and left, Israelis and not Israelis, American and non -American,” he said. “And people come for the same cause: bring those hostages back home.”
Shache said he hopes that the group can return to their walks soon.
“At this time, run through the lives, the international group, asked to stop walking until we understand better security arrangements and security arrangements,” he said. “However, personally, I will say that while we can do it, and while we are working with the police and we can do it, I will walk until the last host returns home.”
Soliman, a five -year -old husband and father who lives in Colorado Springs, supposedly said he had been planning the attack for a year, but waited until his daughter graduated from high school last Thursday to carry it out, they said state and federal documents.
Soliman had taken a hidden transport class to learn to shoot a weapon, but “he had to use Molotov cocktails [for the attack] After the purchase of a gun was denied because it was not a legal citizen, “said documents from the State Court.
Sixteen Molotov cocktails unused were available to the “scope” of the suspect when he was arrested, the special FBI Denver agent by Mark Michalek said on Monday.
The molotov cocktails off were “composed of bottles of wine jug or ball bottles containing transparent liquids and red rags that hang from the bottles,” judicial documents said. The police also found a “back of backpack weeds, potentially containing an flammable substance. The transparent liquid in glass bottles and weed sprayer was determined that it was 87 octane gasoline, which was determined that contained xilen.”
Soliman has been accused of a crime of federal hatred and state charges that include 16 positions of first degree murder attempt, according to judicial documents. It appeared in court virtually on Monday. You still have to enter a plea.
Soliman is in the United States with an expired tourist visa, authorities said. He was granted a work permit, but that had also expired in March. He was born in Egypt and lived in Kuwait for 17 years before moving to Colorado Springs three years ago, according to judicial documents.
