A jury in Vermont convicted 51-year-old American citizen Jason Eaton on Monday of attempting to murder three Palestinians a month and a half after Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, terrorist attack. During his trial, Eaton pleaded insanity and claimed he had acted on orders from the Mossad and the CIA, but that argument was rejected. Despite what the victims described as a racist motive, he was not charged with a hate crime.
The attack took place in Burlington, Vermont, on the evening of Nov. 25, 2023. Eaton opened fire on Hisham Awartani, Tahseen Ali Ahmed and Kinnan Abdel Hamid — three U.S. college students of Palestinian descent who grew up in the West Bank.
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Jason Eaton sits impassively in a Vermont courtroom
(Photo: Paul Heintz/The Boston Globe via AP, Pool)
Eaton approached them as they were walking down the street on their way to visit Awartani’s grandmother during the Thanksgiving holiday break and shot them. Awartani was paralyzed from the waist down, Ali Ahmad was wounded in the chest and Abdel Hamid was shot in the buttocks as he fled.
Hisham Awartani, Tahseen Ali Ahmed and Kinnan Abdel Hamid, three U.S. college students of Palestinian descent who grew up in the West Bank
The three Palestinian men were 20 at the time and were wearing black-and-white Palestinian keffiyehs. When the gunman confronted them after dark, they were walking near the University of Vermont campus and speaking to each other in English and Arabic.
The shooting caused shock not only in Burlington but also in the West Bank, where the three grew up and became friends as classmates in Ramallah before moving to the United States for college.
Although Eaton did not deny being the shooter, he pleaded not guilty throughout the trial, and his attorneys sought to establish an insanity defense based on his claims that the CIA and Mossad had ordered him to carry out the shooting and transmitted instructions to him through FM radio broadcasts, and that God had commanded him to protect his Jewish neighbors.
Hisham Awartani, who was paralyzed from the waist down, testifies in court
(Photo: Glenn Russell/Pool photo via AP)
He claimed he began receiving the messages while listening to a local NPR station and that they were initially encouraging and supportive, but later grew darker and urged him to “go out and shoot someone.”
The insanity defense, which would have spared him a prison sentence if accepted, was rejected. Eaton will be sentenced at a later date and could receive life in prison without the possibility of parole. In any case, he is expected to serve at least 20 years for each count on which he was convicted.
During the roughly weeklong trial, all three Palestinian men testified and recounted how their walk ended in bloodshed.
The scene of the Nov. 25, 2023 attack
(Photo: Wayne Savage via AP)
As the verdict was read Monday, Eaton stared straight ahead and expressionless while standing beside his attorneys — public defenders whom he had tried to fire the previous week, claiming his defense had not been properly presented.
Awartani and Ali Ahmad listened to the verdict from the front row of the courtroom gallery and were seen smiling and embracing those around them.
“The verdict cannot turn back the clock or erase the trauma our families still carry, but it affirms something fundamental: Jason Eaton is responsible for his actions,” Awartani’s mother, Elizabeth Price, told reporters afterward.
Eaton’s attorneys, Margaret Jansch and Joshua O’Hara, said during the trial that he had struggled throughout his life with mental health problems, including diagnoses of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder, bipolar disorder, depression and borderline personality disorder, which they said culminated in a psychotic episode after he lost his job at a credit union two weeks before the shooting.
Tahseen Ali Ahmed, who was injured in the chest, was int he courtroom when the verdict was read
(Photo: Glenn Russell/Pool photo via AP)
Kinnan Abdel Hamid sits in the courtroom
(Photo: Glenn Russell/Pool photo via AP)
Prosecutor Sarah George, however, said in her closing argument that Eaton was a narcissist but was not legally insane. She said he had a grandiose sense of self-importance and lacked empathy, but was fully aware of the criminal nature of his actions.
Despite calls for Eaton to be charged with a hate crime, no such charge was filed, and he was convicted only of three counts of attempted second-degree murder.
That decision was met with dissatisfaction by the families, who believe Eaton’s motives were entirely clear.
During her closing argument, George noted that, days after the shooting, Eaton told his attorneys that he wished Awartani’s grandmother — whom the three Palestinians had been on their way to visit — had warned him that the young men were “going to dress like terrorists” and walk through his neighborhood, or alternatively had told them, “You know, maybe now isn’t a great time to wear that thing on your head,” or said, “You know, things are a little tense when there are American hostages in Palestine, and we’re trying to get them back.”
Price, Awartani’s mother, said of those remarks: “Those were not the words of a man who was confused about the target of the shooting or his motive. Those were the words of a man who saw three young men speaking the language of their childhood and wearing what made them feel closer to their families and homes far away, and decided to kill them because of his prejudice.”
Joseph Czuba murdered 6-year-old Palestinian American Wadea Al-Fayoume in a 2023 stabbing attack in Illinois and later died in prison
Alongside the rise in antisemitism and violent acts against Jews and Israelis in the United States, organizations and activists there have also pointed to an increase in hostility toward Muslims since Hamas’ 2023 terrorist attack and the Swords of Iron war that followed.
Anti-Muslim incidents have included the 2023 stabbing death of 6-year-old Palestinian American Wadea Al-Fayoume by the landlord of the Illinois home where he lived with his mother. The killer, Joseph Czuba, was sentenced to 53 years in prison and later died in custody.
Another prominent case was the shooting attack at a mosque in San Diego in May, in which three people were killed by two teenagers who later took their own lives.