American police arrest the shooter of 3 students of Palestinian origin, and the White House says Biden is shocked

Published in: 28/11/2023 – 03:19

4 minutes

Pushing the suspect in an accident shooting Three Palestinian-American college students in Vermont were found not guilty earlier this week on Monday of three counts of attempted second-degree murder, but a judge ordered him held without bail.

The suspect was represented by Jason J. Eaton, 48, appeared before the Chittenden County Criminal Court in Burlington via a remote video feed from the county jail, where authorities have held him since his arrest Sunday.

Local and federal authorities opened an investigation into the attack, and considered it a suspected hate crime. Police reported that two of them were wearing the Palestinian keffiyeh at the time of the attack.

Police said Eaton used a gun to shoot the three in the street near the University of Vermont in Burlington on Saturday evening, before fleeing.

The police said that the three remained under medical care until Monday, and that two of them suffered gunshot wounds to the torso, while the third was injured in the lower half of the body.

She added that two are in stable condition, while the third suffers from more serious injuries.

“While we have no evidence yet to support this being a hate crime, I want to make clear that there is no doubt that this was an act of hate,” Chittenden County State’s Attorney Sarah Vere George said during a news conference Monday.

The shooting came as the United States witnessed an increase in reports of incidents linked to Islamophobia and anti-Semitism since the outbreak of a bloody conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) on October 7.

During the three-minute trial session, the judge asked Eaton if he knew the charges against him, to which the latter responded, saying: “Yes, sir.”

Police said the suspect obtained the weapon used in the shooting incident a few months ago illegally.

The victims were reportedly speaking Arabic at the time of the attack, according to the Institute for Middle Eastern Understanding, a pro-Palestinian non-profit organization.

The institute added that the attacker opened fire on the three after he started shouting and harassing them. Police say he fired four shots without saying a word.

“The expanding global threat environment”

US Attorney General Merrick Garland said Monday that the US Department of Justice is assisting local authorities in the investigation.

“No person or community in this country should live in fear of deadly violence,” he explained before a separate meeting at the department’s Southern District office in New York.

Garland added that the state of fear afflicting communities across the country is due to “the expansion of the global threat environment” and “the sharp increase in the size and frequency of threats against the Jewish, Islamic and Arab communities throughout our country since October 7th.”

The White House said that US President Joe Biden is shocked by the shooting incident.

“There is absolutely no room for violence or hatred in America,” White House spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters at a news conference.

The families of the victims said that those targeted in the attack were Hisham Awartani from Brown University in Rhode Island, Kenan Abdel Hamid from Haverford University in Pennsylvania, and Tahseen Ahmed from Trinity University in Connecticut, and added that the three studied at Friends High School in Ramallah in the occupied West Bank. Israel before they joined the university.

Police said that two of them hold American citizenship, and the third is a legal resident of the United States, and they are all 20 years old.

Two of them were visiting the third’s family home in Burlington over the Thanksgiving holiday.

France 24/AFP