A person from Highland Park, who had previously experienced the tragic events following the Fourth of July parade shooting in 2022, was nearly involved in another violent incident this past weekend in Boulder, Colorado.
“I immediately rode my bike to the courthouse and saw people burning,” Aaron Brooks said.
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Brooks described the surreal horror of that moment.
The Highland Park native was captured in a cell phone video after authorities claim that 45-year-old Mohamed Soliman attacked a group using a homemade flamethrower and Molotov cocktails. This group was participating in a regular walk to highlight the plight of Israeli hostages, and the attack left twelve people injured.
“He screamed, ‘you’re burning my people’ or ‘you burned my people,'” Brooks said.
Soliman, who made a court appearance on Monday wearing an orange jumpsuit and with his head bandaged, is accused of traveling around 100 miles from his residence in Colorado Springs to Boulder to carry out the attack.
Court papers say he admitted that he “…researched on YouTube how to make Molotov Cocktails…” and authorities allegedly found a “backpack weed sprayer” containing “87 octane gasoline” and “…sixteen unlit Molotov cocktails.”
“And when he was interviewed about the attack, he said he wanted them all to die. He had no regrets, and he would go back and do it again,” said J. Bishop Grewell, acting U.S. attorney for Colorado.
The attack comes less than two weeks after two Israeli embassy staffers were shot and killed while leaving an event in Washington, D.C.
“We can’t continue to say, well you know, this is new state of things. No, again, it’s antithetical to who we are as Americans,” said Lonnie Nasatir, Jewish United Fund Chicago president and CEO.
Brooks says he usually attends those weekly walks in Boulder, but was running late on Sunday.
He says the discourse in the U.S. must change.
“Let’s get to talking with one another about what we really can do to make this world better, and that means reaching across the aisle, getting out of our algorithms and talking,” Brooks said.
This isn’t the first mass casualty incident Brooks has witnessed in the U.S. He also saw the carnage of the Highland Park shooting firsthand.
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