June 11, 2025 01:36 PM UTC

Gabe Evans Burned For Bogus Boulder Attack Blame Gaming

• 1 Comments
• by: Colorado Pols

Following the antisemitic terror attack in Boulder just over a week ago that injured 15 people at a march in support of Jewish hostages held by Hamas in Gaza, local Republicans led by freshman Rep. Gabe Evans rushed to lay blame for the attack on Colorado’s so-called “sanctuary state” policies, despite the fact that the accused noncitizen terrorist was in the country on an asylum claim with a valid work permit and would not have raised any particular suspicion. The one exception to accused terrorist Mohamed Saliman’s low profile, as we took note of last week, was an attempt by Saliman to purchase a firearm that was denied by a Colorado Bureau of Investigations (CBI) background check. Not only did Colorado’s background check system successfully prevent the suspect from buy a gun, as FOX 31 originally reported, CBI notified federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement of Soliman’s attempted purchase–after which no action was apparently taken.

Colorado Public Radio’s Allison Sherry circled back with Rep. Evans to find out if the news that CBI had done its job in communicating the only known red flag that arose about Mohamed Soliman changed his mind about blaming Colorado laws for the attack:

The revelation, confirmed by the Colorado Bureau of Investigation on Tuesday, contradicts a central talking point U.S. Rep. Gabe Evans made Monday while complaining about Colorado’s laws that prevent some information sharing between state and local governments and federal immigration officials…

CBI confirmed on Tuesday that Soliman attempted to purchase a handgun at Scheels All Sports in Colorado Springs on Nov. 22, 2024. He never appealed this denial, CBI said, but he tried again on Dec. 30, 2024 to obtain a concealed handgun permit through the state agency and the El Paso County Sheriff’s Office. He was denied then, too.

When asked by CPR News about the CBI’s email to federal officials, Evans said the bureau hadn’t handled the situation “in a meaningful way” because it did not also alert Colorado’s anti-terrorism center.

A spokesperson for Evans, Delanie Bomar, went further, saying the CBI has “major quality control issues under [Democrats], so until we know that accurate, complete, and actionable info was relayed, the comment still stands.”

Which is a bunch of nonsense, because:

Within minutes of that attempted gun purchase at a store in Colorado Springs, an automatic email notification was sent from the Colorado Bureau of Investigation to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security advising them that a person without legal immigration status attempted to buy a firearm in Colorado.

The notification to ICE of a denied fun purchase by an undocumented immigrant is automatic. You can argue that it was a mistake for federal officials under both administrations to have not responded to that notification, but the notification still happened. Evans simply doesn’t want to admit he was wrong, so he’s moving the goalposts to the information needing to be “accurate, complete, and actionable,” which means whatever Gabe wants it to mean.

Ten days after this horrific terror attack, there is still little to suggest that it could have been prevented with any information available to authorities from the time of Saliman’s entry on a valid tourist visa to his asylum request and work authorization that was valid until March of this year. It was the relentless need Evans feels to politicize and lay blame for every negative news headline that resulted in him indiscriminately blaming local Democrats for this terror attack while victims were still being treated in the hospital.

Gabe Evans was wrong. Evans’ former law enforcement colleagues in Colorado did their jobs.

And instead of an apology, Evans doubled down on the bogus blame game.

It’s a recipe for no longer being taken seriously.