Two days later, that remains the case, in part because the political, religious and racial elements it contains serve the needs of a national media that sees divisive content as the best way to drive ratings during a national period of turmoil.
The timing of Sunday afternoon's assault, now considered by state and federal enforcement to be a hate crime and act of terror, is another key factor behind the attack's sudden ubiquity — and not just because June 1 was the first day of Shavuot, a Jewish holiday commemorating the anniversary of Moses receiving the Torah on Mount Sinai. In the preceding days, no single event or controversy had a stranglehold on the greater public's attention, as evidenced by alerts sent out by major news agencies.
For instance, the Washington Post's three push notifications on Friday pertained to Taylor Swift's success at purchasing the masters to her first six albums, the CDC contradicting Health and Human Services Director Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s assertion that kids should no longer be required to take the COVID vaccine, and President Donald Trump's announcement that tariffs on imported steel would double to 50 percent — and the newspaper didn't send a single alert on Saturday or Sunday prior to informing its readership about what had happened in Boulder.
Likewise, the New York Times was focusing on events such as the death of 87-year-old actress Loretta Swit and Canada's policies related to medically assisted death before latching onto the Pearl Street Mall episode.
Both the Post and the Times offered extensive coverage from Boulder. But the news purveyor that exhibited the most enthusiasm for flooding its audience with updates about this Colorado matter was Fox News, which long ago transformed from a right-leaning info purveyor to a public-relations arm of the Trump administration — and the crime certainly provided an opportunity to reinforce The Donald's worldview on multiple subjects.
The White House is wholly supportive of Israel and has regularly portrayed anyone who voices pro-Palestinian opinions as worthy of the harshest possible retribution. Note that Trump's battles against Harvard are rooted in anger over protests against the way Benjamin Netanyahu's government is treating the people of Gaza. And the location of the attack — a place nicknamed the People's Republic of Boulder — also dovetailed nicely with Trump's constant criticism of progressives, whom he delights in portraying as un-American. A collection of Israel supporters bravely ventures into a bastion of liberalism only to be sprayed with what authorities have described as a "makeshift flamethrower" by a zealot quoted as yelling "Free Palestine" at his targets? The tale practically spins itself.
Then there's Colorado's history of tragedies that become cable-news staples. The state in general has suffered a rash of mass casualty events, beginning with the bloodshed at Columbine High School in 1999 and continuing through the 2012 Aurora theater shooting, the 2015 slayings at a Colorado Springs Planned Parenthood office, and the 2022 fatal violence at the Springs' Club Q.
Boulder-specific horrors have had their own lengthy runs in the national consciousness. The killing of ten people at a local King Soopers elicited a shock felt from coast to coast for months, and the still-unsolved 1996 murder of JonBenét Ramsey in December 1996 remains a fixation for many nearly three decades later.
This helps explain why CNN morning-show host Kate Bolduan asked Colorado Representative Jason Crow these questions during his appearance on June 3: "Why Colorado? Why Boulder?"
Understandably, Crow didn't want to go there. "Well, we all need to stand up and loudly and strongly condemn this," he replied. But Bolduan's inquiry certainly didn't come out of the clear blue sky — the sort that most people seem to believe hovers over Boulder at all times.
The title of author Lawrence Schiller's book about the JonBenét case, Perfect Murder, Perfect Town, underscores the idea that Colorado, exemplified in that instance by Boulder, is a bucolic wonderland filled with spectacular scenery and gorgeous people whose lives are like travel brochures made real.
It's the kind of place where nothing bad should ever happen — and when it does, the impact is amplified to a shattering degree. The same phenomenon came into play with Columbine (well-off, apparently trouble-free teens in a lovely suburb go homicidal) and the Aurora theater shooting (genius from a good family suddenly turns the seemingly safest of neighborhood settings into a nightmare) — and it was a big reason why they both became so well known.
Given these precursors, it's no surprise that Fox News shared a stunning twenty posts on X about the Boulder onslaught between 3:56 p.m. and midnight on June 1. Among them was an item featuring the photo of FBI Director Kash Patel seen below along with the superimposed quote "We are aware of and fully investigating a targeted terror attack in Boulder, Colorado. Our agents and local law enforcement are on the scene already, and we will share more updates as more information becomes available" — with the words "fully investigating" in red.
A similar Fox News X salvo featured a photo of Danny Danon, Israel's ambassador to the United Nations, and a quote whose last three words appeared in red as well: "Terrorism against Jews does not stop at the Gaza border — it is already burning the streets of America. Make no mistake, this is not a political protest, this is terrorism."
Still, these social-media flourishes were mild compared to the messages that arrived after authorities identified Mohammed Sabry Soliman, the suspect in the case, as well as a man who provided opportunities for the network to attack immigrants in general and Trump's Oval Office predecessor. A Fox News X post that did both reads: "Boulder terror suspect Mohammed Sabry Soliman is an illegal immigrant from Egypt who entered the US under the Biden administration, three sources say."
CNN has been pushing some of these buttons, too, with the assistance of John Miller, its chief law enforcement and intelligence analyst. Miller became a familiar face as a correspondent for CBS — during his stint there, he interviewed Osama bin Laden and wrote a book about 9/11 — before being named Deputy Commissioner of Intelligence & Counterterrorism with the New York Police Department. Since his return to journalism in 2022, he has become CNN's go-to expert whenever an act that even hints at terrorism takes place. Initially, the Boulder Police Department resisted the urge to declare the Pearl Street Mall attack terrorism, but Patel didn't — and Miller's verbiage made it clear he was much more willing to take this philosophical leap even before many of the details were shared.BREAKING: Boulder terror suspect Mohamed Sabry Soliman is an illegal immigrant from Egypt who entered the US under the Biden administration, three sources say pic.twitter.com/IONgzFBdgZ
— Fox News (@FoxNews) June 2, 2025
The emergence of additional facts has understandably fueled even more press interest. According to his federal criminal affidavit, released on June 2 and accessible below, Soliman had at least fourteen unlit Molotov cocktails in his possession at the time of his arrest and was equipped with a "backpack weed sprayer" containing gasoline. Moreover, the document says he researched how to make the explosive devices on YouTube, specifically focused on the Boulder protesters, stated that he "wanted to kill all Zionist people and wished they were all dead," and made it clear that if given the opportunity to repeat his offense, "he would do it again."
That doesn't mean television pundits and the like will limit themselves to these particulars. Expect the conservative press to continue emphasizing anti-intellectual angles, as seen in a Fox News X blast from June 2: "@HudsonInstitute senior fellow Rebecca Heinrichs points the finger at American universities that have become hotbeds for hate-fueled, antisemitic rhetoric in the wake of the violent, targeted terror attack in Colorado." But the story is likely to have a long life at less ideological outlets, too.
After all, when a story has this many hot buttons, you can be sure plenty of media types will keep punching them.
Read the Mohammed Sabry Soliman affidavit below.
Mohammed Sabry Soliman Affidavit by Michael Roberts on Scribd
