Randomly attacked Boulder couple speaking out

BOULDER, Colo. — A Boulder couple doesn’t want what happened to them last weekend to happen to you.

So they’re going public about how they crossed paths with four strangers who instantly turned into enemies.

“We were having sushi here,” assault victim Kris Chavez, 29, said.

And after that good meal at Hapa Sushi on the Pearl Street Mall, their walk home turned bad.

“We noticed the car,” Chavez said. It was about 12:45 a.m. early Saturday morning.

Four men inside start hurling insults at Chavez’s new wife, kathryn, also 29.

“They were going to take her and do things to her. And they were talking about lifting up her skirt,” Chavez said.

“I said, ‘That’s inappropriate,’ and I said, ‘That’s why you four guys are in a car with no women.’ That was my little two-cents. So that apparently was enough to provoke them to come out.”

The newlyweds of a month walked out onto the street not realizing one of the men was following them.

“I was hit first here,” Chavez said, pointing to the sidewalk on Spruce St.

A man who has now been depicted in a police sketh punched Chavez several times in the face. Then, the second attacker joined in.

Chavez pulled out his phone and told them he was calling the police.

“Some folks ran across the street and said the same thing — that they were also calling police. And that’s what scared them away,” Chavez said.

the attack left chavez with a bruised face and a broken tooth — and police with the resolve to find them.

“We don’t want those people out there,” Boulder Police spokesperson Kim Kobel said. “We want to get them off the street. People want to be able to feel safe and to walk around.”

“It’s not so much the physical pain that fades away. It’s about ensuring that sort of thing doesn’t happen,” Chavez added.

Both suspects are white, in their 20s, with brown hair, wearing white baseball caps with flat brims and baggy clothes.

The suspect who struck first is big — about 6-foot-4 and 260 pounds. The other is 5-foot-10 and 195-210 pounds. They were passengers in a blue Jeep Liberty. They face charges of third-degree assault.

If you recognize them, police would like to hear from you. A Crime Stoppers reward is available.