Three Palestinian college students have been shot in Burlington, Vermont, prompting calls from civil rights organizations and the victims’ families for authorities to look into possible bias by the attacker.
According to news release from the Burlington Police Department, the 20-year-old men, Hisham Awartani, Tahseen Ahmed and Kinnan Abdalhamid are receiving medical care.
“Two are stable, while one has sustained much more serious injuries.”
The news release added that the students were walking on Prospect Street while visiting a relative in Burlington for the Thanksgiving holiday when they were confronted by a white man with a handgun.
Police said “Without speaking, he discharged at least four rounds from the pistol and is believed to have fled on foot,”.
The families have urged police to investigate the attack as a hate crime.
A suspect has been arrested.
Burlington police have named the suspect as Jason J Eaton, aged 48, reports CBS News, the BBC’s media partner in the US.
All three students attended Ramallah Friends School, a Quaker-run private non-profit school in Ramallah, according to family members.
Abdalhamid, was named by Haverford College in Pennsylvania as one of its students. The other two have been named as Brown University student Awartani and Ahmed, who attends Trinity College in Connecticut.
Police Chief Jon Murad said in an earlier news release that officers responded to a call and found two shooting victims, with the third a short distance away, all close to the University of Vermont campus.
Vermont senator and former Democrat presidential candidate Bernie Sanders condemned the latest violence.
Posting on X, Sanders said: “It is shocking and deeply upsetting that three young Palestinians were shot here in Burlington, Vermont. Hate has no place here, or anywhere.”
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