While stressing that the information was “very preliminary,” Boulder Police Chief Stephen Redfearn said that the man was apprehended following calls to the police dispatch of someone with a weapon who was “setting people on fire.”
Redfearn said he wasn’t in a position to identify the suspect yet, noting that he’d been taken to the hospital. He said there were multiple injuries among the victims, ranging “from very serious to more minor.”
The Boulder attack occurred in the vicinity of a walk to remember the Israeli hostages who remain in Gaza.
FBI Director Kash Patel, in a statement, described the incident as a targeted terror attack and said agents were on the scene.
Redfearn, however, said it was too early to speculate about a motive.
“We are not calling it a terror attack at this moment,” he said. “This was a beautiful Sunday afternoon in downtown Boulder on Pearl Street and this act was unacceptable,” he said. “I ask that you join me in thinking about the victims, the families of those victims, and everyone involved in this tragedy.”
The incident comes amid heightened tensions in the United States over Israel’s war in Gaza, which has spurred both an increase in antisemitic hate crime as well as moves by conservative supporters of Israel led by US President Donald Trump to brand pro-Palestinian protests as antisemitic. (Reuters)
