Boulder attack suspect charged with attempted murder in Colorado and a federal hate crime

When he walked over, he said he spotted a man yelling at the crowds gathered on the scene while a few others tended to the burn victims on the ground.

“He was yelling at the people, saying, ‘F— you Zionist, you’re killing all my people,’” Brian said, adding that he began recording the man on his phone before calling the police, in case he “tried to run for it before the police got there.”

Among the victims was an elderly woman who was not moving at all, Brian said, adding that people began ushering buckets of water, some with ice, over to her. “I went and grabbed one of the buckets,” he said, adding, “I started scooping out water from the fountain and … tried to start pouring it on [the victims’] legs to make them more comfortable.”

Another burn victim, a man who appeared to be in his 50s or 60s, was “just kind of in shock,” he said, adding, “His leg, from ankle or foot, all the way up to his buttocks, was melted.”

Brian, who appeared visibly shaken while recounting the graphic details, said many of the victims appeared to have deep cuts in their legs and were bleeding from their feet. “This other woman had burned over her hands, ankles, feet, elbows,” he said, adding that “they looked stunned, confused.”

He said that the police arrived after about 10 minutes to quickly disarm and apprehend the attacker, who was previously armed with two bottles of what appeared to be alcohol. “I saw him … looking like he was about to throw it at people, and they looked exactly like what I would think would be a Molotov cocktail,” he said, adding that he initially mistook the man for a gardener because he was wearing an orange vest.

Brian, who identified as a Jewish man who grew up in Ohio and who lived in Israel and Chicago before moving to Denver, said he was “saddened and pessimistic” about what the attack “means for us as Jewish people, what it means for our future in this country.”