Police in Vermont arrest suspect in shooting of three Palestinian students

Jason Eaton’s attorneys on Monday entered pleas of not guilty on his behalf to three counts of attempted second-degree murder. He was ordered held without bail. Police arrested Eaton, 48, on Sunday in the city of Burlington after federal agents found a gun in his apartment. Authorities have accused him of shooting three 20-year-old men on Saturday night near the University of Vermont campus. The young men are of Palestinian descent and were wearing black-and-white keffiyeh scarves at the time of the shooting. The Justice Department is investigating whether the shooting was a hate crime, U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland said Monday.

Who are the victims? Officials identified the victims as Hisham Awartani, Kinnan Abdalhamid, and Tahseen Ahmed. All three attended universities in the Northeast, and they were visiting Awartani’s family for Thanksgiving. Police said two are American citizens, and the third is a legal resident. All three remained hospitalized on Monday in an intensive care unit, said Awartani’s uncle Rich Price.

Dig deeper: Listen to Mary Muncy’s report on The WORLD and Everything in It podcast about how anti-Semitism is rising on college campuses.