Vermont suspect charged in shooting of 3 Palestinians, including Haverford College student, in possible hate crime

Vermont authorities have arrested and charged a suspect in the shooting of three Palestinian men in Burlington on Saturday — including Haverford College student Kinnan Abdalhamid — but said it is still too early to determine whether the unprovoked attack was a hate crime.

Jason J. Eaton, 48, pleaded not guilty to three counts of attempted murder on Monday and is being held without bail.

Law enforcement agents on Sunday apprehended Eaton and recovered the Ruger .380 pistol with red-tipped ammunition that authorities allege he used to gun down the three college students as they were walking home from a family gathering near the University of Vermont’s campus in Burlington.

Abdalhamid, Hisham Awartani, and Tahseen Ahmed were speaking in a mixture of English and Arabic, and two of them were wearing keffiyehs, when Eaton allegedly stepped off a nearby porch and fired four shots at them without warning, according to Burlington Police Chief Jon Murad.

“They were walking down the street, essentially minding their own business,” he said at a news conference in Burlington on Monday.

Police said two of the victims are U.S. citizens and the third is a legal resident. All three remained hospitalized as of Monday, with Awartani facing a long recovery due to a spinal injury from the shooting.

Given the unprovoked nature of the attack and soaring tension around the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Murad said it was understandable to suspect hate-based motivations at play in the case, but urged the public to withhold speculation as the investigation continues among local, state, and federal authorities. “We still do not know as much as we want to know.”

Burlington Mayor Miro Weinberger called the attack “one of the most shocking and disturbing events in this city’s history.” The victims have ties stretching from the Palestinian territories to the college campus in Delaware County, according to friends and family members.

Radi Tamimi, Abdalhamid’s uncle, said that his nephew grew up in the West Bank and came to the United States for school, a decision his family thought was best for his safety at the time.

“We feel somehow betrayed in that decision here and, you know, we’re just trying to come to terms with everything,” Tamimi said in Burlington on Monday.

Abdalhamid, 20, is studying biology and a member of the track team at Haverford. He attended the Ramallah Friends School — a private school in the West Bank — with Awartani and Ahmed, according to a post on Facebook from the school.

The three men were visiting Burlington for the holidays and staying with Awartani’s uncle, Rich Price, who said they had just returned from a birthday party for his 8-year-old twins when they were shot in the street.

“It speaks to the level of civic vitriol,” Price said of the shooting. “It speaks to the level of hatred that exists in some corners of this country. It speaks to a sickness of gun violence that exists in this country.”

When federal agents with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives knocked on Eaton’s apartment door on Sunday, the suspected shooter told them something to the effect of “I’ve been waiting for you,” and then requested an attorney, Murad said. Authorities obtained a search warrant and later found the firearm and ammunition that they said was linked to the shooting scene through ballistic evidence. Police said the suspect had purchased the .380 pistol in April.

Eaton is from the Syracuse area and had just recently relocated to Burlington, authorities said. Social media accounts linked to the suspect showed that he had variously identified as a financial broker, a farm hand, and a libertarian who supported both Republican and Democratic politicians, VICE News reported. Eaton’s mother told the Daily Beast he had struggled with depression and other mental health issues but had been in a “good mood” when she saw him on Thanksgiving and did not mention the ongoing Israel-Hamas conflict.

Prosecutors said the three counts of attempted murder that Eaton faces in Vermont could carry a life sentence.

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Meanwhile, support for the victims and calls for justice continues pouring in from across the globe.

A friend and Haverford classmate of Abdalhamid’s previously told The Inquirer that Abdalhamid was a “bright kid” who was “kind of at the forefront of Palestine activism” on campus, often organizing rallies and in talks with administration. Abdalhamid recently spoke at a schoolwide meeting about the demands of Students for Justice in Palestine.

“We await word on whether [the shooting] will be pursued as a hate crime,” said a statement from Haverford president Wendy Raymond and dean John McKnight. “In the meantime know that Haverford College condemns all acts of hatred.”

The families of Awartani, Abdalhamid, and Ahmed released a statement through the Institute for Middle East Understanding that called on law enforcement to treat this shooting as a hate crime.

“No family should ever have to endure this pain and agony,” the statement continued.

Reports of harassment and violence against Jews and Muslims have spiked nationally since the Oct. 7 Hamas attack and Israeli forces began a military siege in the Gaza Strip. In October, a 6-year-old Palestinian-American boy in Illinois was killed when his landlord stabbed him 26 times for being Muslim, police said.

In Philadelphia, the Council for American-Islamic Relations has received 50 claims of anti-Arab and anti-Muslim bias since the start of the war.

This article contains information from the Associated Press..