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Activists have regularly disrupted council meetings to demand that the city call for a cease-fire in Gaza. The unusual tension suggests a changing Boulder.
June 3, 2025, 10:00 p.m. ET
In the foothills of the Rocky Mountains, the college town of Boulder, Colo., has long been known as a laid-back, hippie haven. Its residents cherish the outdoors, and its leaders are often elected on reliably liberal promises to expand affordable housing, address climate change and increase racial equity.
In recent months, however, the City Council has been pulled apart over an entirely different matter: the war in Gaza.
Pro-Palestinian protesters have regularly interrupted meetings with shouting and other unruly behavior, even prompting the council to temporarily move its meetings online to avoid further disruption and later adding rules to more easily bar people from City Hall.
It was against that backdrop that an outsider, a man from Colorado Springs, Colo., yelled “Free Palestine,” the authorities said, as he threw Molotov cocktails at demonstrators marching on Sunday to support the Israeli hostages. Twelve people were injured. Federal officials plan to charge the man with a hate crime.
There was no indication that he had any connection to Boulder, his target apparently chosen through an online search for Colorado groups that he believed were supportive of Israel, according to law enforcement officials. But the attack rattled a city that was already feeling consumed by tensions over a war thousands of miles away.
“It’s been a hard time here in Boulder,” Mayor Aaron Brockett said. “We reiterate over and over and over again that international affairs are not the business of the Boulder City Council, and our work is to clean the streets and make sure the water comes out when you turn the tap.”
