() Brian Horwitz told he was eating lunch with his family Sunday when a man attacked a group of demonstrators in Boulder, Colorado.
Mohamed Sabry Soliman, 45, is accused of using an incendiary device and a makeshift flamethrower to attack a crowd at an outdoor mall on Sunday. At least eight people were injured, according to police.
Horwitz, a Jewish man living in Denver, said he’d always imagined what he would do in a violent situation like Sunday’s.
“Frankly, it’s the opposite of what I would normally probably do. But it was just one of those things where I needed to see if I could help, because these people who are on this walk were almost entirely elderly people,” Horwitz told ‘s “Morning in America.”
Horwitz said he knew the demonstrators were typically “super peaceful” and that he had a gut feeling when he heard something had happened.
“As soon as I heard that there’s someone throwing flames or throwing fire at people, I assume the worst,” Horwitz said. “And assume that it was absolutely this group of people that was being attacked.”
So, Horwitz jumped to his feet, hopped a patio gate and ran to the scene.
“I was trying to figure out a way that I could help or be somewhat of some use, which is why I started recording, to make sure this guy was caught if he did start running away,” Horwitz said.
Horwitz said Soliman was yelling, “‘You kill my people. I’ll kill you. You guys are all killers, child killers,’ that sort of thing.”
Booking documents show Soliman faces eight felony charges, including murder in the first degree, though police said Monday that no victims had died.
Mark Michalek, special agent in charge of the FBI’s Denver field office, said the suspect yelled “Free Palestine” during the attack.
The scene was “pretty horrific,” Horwitz told . “There were people lying on the ground, writhing in pain, screams, people yelling.”
The FBI is treating the incident as a “targeted terror attack.”
