A man in his forties was charged with attempted murder in the northeastern US state of Vermont on Monday after allegedly shooting three students, possibly due to their Palestinian background, amid a rise in racist incidents in the US since the start of the Gaza war.
The assault sparked widespread outrage, with President Joe Biden saying in a White House statement that he was “horrified.” Attorney-General Merrick Garland said an investigation was underway, in particular to determine whether it was a hate crime.
The suspect, Jason Eaton, 48, was arrested late on Sunday following a search of his home, near the scene of the incident, Burlington police revealed. He is suspected of firing his .380 caliber handgun four times at the three 20-year-old students in Burlington town, Vermont, hitting all three.
“One of them suffered injuries that could potentially impact him for life,” Police Chief Jon Murad explained at a press conference. The other two were in “stable” condition on Sunday, he said.
The three students, who were spending their Thanksgiving holidays in Burlington, near the Canadian border, were walking down a street conversing in English and Arabic when the suspect reportedly approached them without uttering a word, fired and fled, according to Mr. Murad. Two victims were wearing a keffiyeh, the traditional Palestinian scarf.
Two of the victims are American citizens while the third is a legal resident of the United States, authorities reported.
The suspect is being detained without the ability to post bail, according to US press reports.
“While we do not yet have evidence to say it’s a hate crime, it’s very clear that we are dealing with a hateful act,” local prosecutor Sarah George stressed.
In the USA, a hate crime refers to an act made against an individual due to attributes such as ethnicity, religion, nationality, sexual orientation or disability.
In a joint statement on Monday, the victims’ families said that the investigation will “likely show our sons were targeted and attacked simply because they are Palestinians.”
They voiced their belief that “hateful rhetoric” carried in US media and even by some of the country’s most significant lawmakers had led to an “increased environment of racism and violence against Palestinians and Arabs.”
Rich Price, an uncle of a victim present at the press conference, said the assault “demonstrates the extent of tension and hatred existing in some parts of” the country.
In the US, the war between Israel and Islamist group Hamas in the Gaza Strip is causing heightened tensions and has led to a rise in anti-Semitic and Islamophobic acts.
In early October, a six-year-old Palestinian-American boy was stabbed near Chicago by a septuagenarian, who was subsequently charged with a racially motivated crime linked directly to the war, according to the police.
Meanwhile, in California, an academic is standing trial for involuntary manslaughter after a Jewish man died following a clash between pro-Palestinian and pro-Israeli groups at a gathering in early November.
