06 03 25 ABC counterterrorism expert John Cohen talks about the Boulder Pearl Street

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Now on Colorado's Morning News. Mohammed Solomon is the man
charged with throwing molotov cocktails at a crowd of people
during a pro Israel demonstration in Boulder Sunday.

Speaker 2 (00:08):
Joining us now on the KWA Common Spirit Health Hotline
with the latest on this case. His ABC News contributor
and former Acting Under Secretary for Intelligence and counter Terrorism
Coordinator at the used Department of Homeland Security. It's John Cohen. John,
thank you so much for your time. As always, let's
start with this case focusing on the suspect and his
immigration status. Tell us a little bit about what we

(00:29):
know about him so far. We know that he was
in the country illegally. The timeline of when he became
illegal has been a little back and forth.

Speaker 3 (00:38):
Yeah, good morning, Gina's meant to be with you both. Yeah. So,
what we know, based on what we've heard from Department
hoam Land Security, is that Solomon entered the United States
on a tourist visa from Egypt in August of twenty
twenty two. In September of twenty twenty two, he applied
for asylum. Now, DHS has indicated that his tours visa

(00:58):
expired in Februy of twenty three, but that would not
be unusual if his asylum claim was being adjudicated, and
in any I mean, in any way, he was issued
a work permit that didn't expire until March of this year,
so he was technically in legal status through March of

(01:22):
twenty twenty five.

Speaker 1 (01:24):
John, what steps can be taken to prevent these types
of attacks in the future.

Speaker 3 (01:29):
Yeah, I mean, that's a great question, Keenan. I mean,
so we're sitting here in a as we've discussed in
the past, in a threat environment that didn't just crop
up today. It's been described by law enforcement and intelligence
authorities for the last several years this highly complex, dynamic,
and dangerous. We continue to experience mass shootings and mass
casualty attacks. Just this year, we had a target killing

(01:51):
of the United Healthcare CEO. We had a vehicle ramming
attack in New Orleans. We've had major cyber attacks targeting
state and local government. FBI has warned that our telecommunications
infrastructure has been infiltrated by the Chinese, and just in
the last several weeks, we've had a bombing of a
IVF clinic in Palm Springs. We've had the shooting in

(02:15):
DC of two employees of the Israeli Consulate, we had
an arrest of another US citizen who was targeting, you know,
planning an attack in Tel Aviv, and we had the
incident in Boulder. So, you know, obviously, focusing on these
types of attacks need to be a priority. And one
of the concerns I'm hearing from law enforcement today is
that that this administration, there's been such an emphasis and

(02:38):
diversion of resources away from counter terrorism and gang investigations
to focus on immigration and enforcement operations, that the concerns
that's being raised, those resources need to be put back
and this needs to be a top priority for law
enforcement and security officials because based on what we're seeing,
you know, it's a steady drumbeat of threat related activity

(03:00):
that needs to be addressed.

Speaker 2 (03:02):
John, you listed a long list of recent attacks that
we've seen in months ago, But if you want to
pick maybe one for this scenario when we're talking here,
how is the attack that what we saw on Boulder
on Sunday similar or different to what we've seen in
the past.

Speaker 3 (03:17):
Yeah, great question. So what we are seeing is that
these acts of violence may be motivated by a broad
range of ideological beliefs, but they're typically being carried out
by disaffected individuals who are angry, who latch onto some
ideological cause, primarily through the consumption of online content, and

(03:38):
ultimately they come to believe that violence is an acceptable
way to express their opposition to government policies, opposition to
what Israel is doing in Gaza, opposition their anger at
their own personal life. They'll usually blend together ideological beliefs
and ultimately use that as a justification for violence. And

(03:58):
what brings all of these attacks together are the behavioral
characteristics of the attackers. They all tend to have similar
behavioral characteristics, and they all seem to exhibit similar behaviors
just prior to the attack. So if we can do
a better job in educating the community what to look for,

(04:18):
in making sure law enforcement is receptive to those reports
and knows how to assess the risk of people who
come to their attention, making sure that in the short
term that we have a better understanding of the types
of events that may be high priority targets for these
types of attackers, and making sure security is in place.
I think those are all steps we could take in
the immediate sense, to minimize the potential for these types

(04:42):
of acts of violence.

Speaker 1 (04:43):
FBI Director Cash Pattel almost immediately called this an active
terror and we know how serious that phrase can be
when it comes to certain events and the weight that
it carries. How does how does this attack fit into
that definition?

Speaker 3 (04:58):
Well, that is a another good question. I mean if
we were talking four years ago, five years ago, I
would probably be raising concerns that the federal government is
often too quick to was often too quick to say
an attack wasn't an act of terrorism even before the
motive was determined. So I think it's really important in
a situation such as this is you let the investigators

(05:19):
do their job. They need to figure out exactly what
motivated the individual to who who engaged in this act
and Boulder. They need to figure out was he ideologically motivated,
which it appears he was. It appears that the ideological
belief system he latched onto was opposition to Israel. Now

(05:40):
for it to be a terrorism prosecution, there'll have to
be some type of connection with a foreign terrorist group,
So that's what remains to be seen. So they'll be
looking at whether he was inspired by a group, whether
he was his actions were facilitated by a group, and
they've charged him. The FEDS have charged him with a
hate crime, and that's because he targeted this of and

(06:00):
involving people who are supportive of Israel's or supportive of
mored being done to address the hostage situation that's part
of the conflict between Hamas and Israel. Now they'll have
to in order for that hate crime prosecution to evolve
into a terrorism prosecution, they'll have to show a connection

(06:20):
with a terrorist group.

Speaker 2 (06:21):
Well of more coming up in just five minutes. ABC
News consultant and former countertrism coordinator at DHS SITS, John
Cohen