3 students of Palestinian descent shot in Vermont in suspected hate crime
- Police arrest suspect after three 20-year-old students were shot in Burlington, Vermont on Saturday
- The incident occurred amid high tensions in the United States and elsewhere over the Israel-Gaza war
A suspect was arrested in the shooting of three college students of Palestinian descent in Burlington, Vermont, CNN reported early on Monday, in an attack police are investigating as a suspected hate-motivated crime.
A man with a pistol shot and wounded the three victims on the street near the University of Vermont on Saturday evening and then ran away, Burlington police said earlier.
CNN reported that a suspect, identified as Jason J. Eaton, 48, was arrested on Sunday afternoon. Burlington police and the Mayor’s office did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment about an arrest.
Two of the victims are US citizens and the third is a legal US resident, all 20 years old, police said. Two of the men were wearing a keffiyeh, the traditional black-and-white checkered scarf of Middle Eastern dress, at the time of the attack, police said.
The victims were reported to have been speaking Arabic when attacked, according to the Institute for Middle East Understanding, a non-profit pro-Palestinian advocacy organisation, which also said the assailant opened fire on the three men after he began to shout at and harass them. Police say he fired four shots without saying a word.
The shooting came amid a rise in anti-Islamic and antisemitic incidents reported around the United States since a wave of Israel-Palestinian bloodshed erupted in the Middle East on October 7.