Police in Boulder, Colo., said Sunday that several people were injured and a suspect is in custody following reports that someone was setting people on fire at an outdoor mall.
Mark Michalek, the special agent in charge of Denver’s FBI field office, said federal law enforcement is investigating the attack as an act of terrorism.
Boulder police Chief Steve Redfearn had said earlier that it was too early to discuss a motive.
The attack occurred at a popular pedestrian mall in Boulder where a group had gathered for an event to draw attention to Israeli hostages who remain in Gaza, and the FBI alleges the suspect yelled “Free Palestine” before using a makeshift flamethrower on people.
The FBI said six people were hurt, and their injuries ranged from serious to minor.
Brooke Coffman, a 19-year-old at the University of Colorado who witnessed the Boulder incident, told Reuters she saw four women lying or sitting on the ground with burns on their legs. One of them appeared to have been badly burned on most of her body and had been wrapped in a flag by someone, she said.
She described seeing a man whom she presumed to be the attacker standing in the courtyard shirtless, holding a glass bottle of clear liquid and shouting.
“Everybody is yelling, ‘Get water, get water,'” Coffman said.
Multiple blocks of the pedestrian mall area were evacuated by police. The scene shortly after the attack was tense, as law enforcement agents with a police dog walked through the streets looking for threats and instructed the public to stay clear of the pedestrian mall.
