Vermont man guilty of attempted murder for shooting three Palestinians
The shooting in November 2023 came amid a rise in Islamophobia and antisemitism following the start of the Israel-Gaza war.
Vermont man found guilty of attempted murder after shooting three Palestinians
A man has been convicted of attempted murder after shooting three Palestinian university students in Vermont nearly three years ago, with the jury rejecting his insanity defense.
Lawyers for Jason Eaton, 51, said he thought he heard orders from the CIA and Mossad over the radio to shoot someone before he attacked Hisham Awartani, Tahseen Aliahmad and Kinnan Abdalhamid near the University of Vermont.
Eaton did not dispute that he was the gunman, but he pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity. He is now awaiting sentencing and could receive a life sentence.
The November 2023 attack left Awartani paralysed from the waist down and injured the other two men.
The week-long trial heard testimony from the three students, who are all now 23, as well as psychiatrists called by both the defence and the prosecution.
According to the Associated Press, Eaton stared blankly as the jury delivered the guilty verdict, while Awartani, who attended the trial in a wheelchair, and Aliahmad smiled and hugged people around them.
His defence team argued that Eaton’s mental health had deteriorated, leading to psychosis, after he lost his job at a credit union weeks before the incident.
Eaton’s lawyers said he believed the CIA was speaking to him through a local radio broadcast and telling him to "go out and shoot somebody".
"He believed he'd been instructed to do this by a government agency or God," defence attorney Joshua O'Hara said.
The shooting happened the month after the start of the ongoing Israel-Gaza war and amid growing Islamophobia and antisemitism in the US.
It reportedly took place while the three men were walking near Eaton’s home, speaking a mix of Arabic and English and wearing traditional Palestinian scarves known as keffiyehs.
Abdalhamid was a student at Haverford College. Awartani attended Brown University in Rhode Island, and Ahmed was a student at Trinity College in Connecticut.
The three had previously attended school together in Ramallah and were visiting Awartani’s grandmother for Thanksgiving.