What We Know About the Shooting of 3 Palestinians in Vermont
A suspect has pleaded not guilty to attempted murder charges in the shooting, which is being investigated as a potential hate crime.
Police in Burlington, Vermont, have arrested a suspect for the shooting of three Palestinian men near the University of Vermont campus on Saturday night, an incident that is being investigated as a possible hate crime. All three victims are expected to survive, though one is seriously injured. Below is everything we know about the shooting and its aftermath.
Police have made an arrest
In a statement on Sunday, Burlington Police Department identified the suspect as 48-year-old Jason Eaton, who lives adjacent to the crime scene. According to the Burlington Free Press, an agent from Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives arrested Eaton on Sunday afternoon. NBC News reports that when an ATF agent went to Eaton’s apartment on Eaton told the agent “I’ve been waiting for you,” and that the suspected possessed ammunition that matched ammunition at the scene. Eaton was arraigned on Monday morning and pleaded not guilty to three counts of attempted murder in the second degree. He is being held without bond.
Burlington Police Dept. just released the photo of Jason Eaton, 48, the man accused of shooting three Palestinian students on Saturday. I am at the courtroom right now awaiting the arraignment.
— Katharine Huntley (@KatharineNews) November 27, 2023
Full details throughout the day on @wcax pic.twitter.com/dn9mxbEt1P
How the shooting unfolded
Police say that on Saturday night around 6:30 p.m., three 20-year-old men were walking on North Prospect Street in Burlington near the University of Vermont campus when they were confronted by a white man with a handgun. “Without speaking, he discharged at least four rounds from the pistol and is believed to have fled,” Burlington Police chief Jon Murad said in a statement on Sunday. “All three victims were struck, two in their torsos and one in the lower extremities.” Two of the three men were wearing keffiyehs, the traditional Palestinian headdress, when they were attacked. All three were taken to the University of Vermont Medical Center.
Who are the victims?
The Burlington Police Department did not release the names of the three students, but the victims’ families identified them in a joint statement as Kinnan Abdalhamid, Tahseen Ahmed, and Hisham Awartani. According to a statement from the Ramallah Friends School, a K-11 school in the West Bank attended by all three victims, Awartani was shot in the back, Ahmed was shot in the chest, and Abdalhamid sustained minor injuries. All three students attend colleges in the Northeast: Abdalhamid at Haverford College in Pennsylvania, Ahmed at Trinity College in Connecticut, and Awartani at Brown University in Rhode Island. Police state that two of the men are U.S. citizens and one is a legal resident.
In an interview with the New York Times, Marwan Awartani, a former education minister for the Palestinian Authority and a great uncle of victim Hisham Awartani — said that the group was visiting Hisham’s grandmother over the Thanksgiving break. The three took a picture together to send to their families just minutes before the attack, which was soon widely circulated online:
Hisham Awartani, Kinnan Abdalhamid, & Tahseen Ahmed, all Palestinian college students, were shot last night in Vermont while two of them were wearing keffiyehs and speaking Arabic.
— Cori Bush (@CoriBush) November 27, 2023
Anti-Palestinian racism has no place in our society—and must be rooted out in its entirety. pic.twitter.com/TH7zbdeC2c
Awartini said that his great nephew had lost feeling in the lower half of his body after a bullet made contact with his spinal cord. Brown University’s president told the Times that Awartani is “expected to survive his injuries”
Was the shooting sparked by the war in Gaza?
It’s unclear. Burlington mayor Miro Weinberger said on Sunday that “there is an indication this shooting could have been motivate by hate” and that “this possibility is being prioritized in the BPD’s investigation.” In a statement on Sunday night, U.S. Attorney for the District of Vermont Nikolas Kerest announced that his office and the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division will also investigate the possibility of a hate crime.
“In this charged moment, no one can look at this incident and not suspect that it may have been a hate-motivated crime,” Burlington Police chief Jon Murad said on Sunday. “And I have already been in touch with federal investigatory and prosecutorial partners to prepare for that if it’s proven.” Earlier that day, Burlington police said they had “no additional information to suggest the suspect’s motive” beyond the kaffiyeh worn by two of the students.
“No family should ever have to endure this pain and agony,” the parent’s joint statement read. “Our children are dedicated students who deserve to be able to focus on their studies and building their futures.”