Brown University to hold vigil for Palestinian student Hisham Awartani wounded in Vermont shooting
PROVIDENCE, R.I. - Jason Eaton, the man accused of shooting three college students of Palestinian descent in Vermont, was ordered held without bail Monday, hours before a vigil will be held for one of the victims in Rhode Island.
Eaton, 48, pleaded not guilty to three counts of second degree attempted murder in the shootings of Tahseen Ali Ahmed, Kinnan Abdalhamid and Hisham Awartani in Burlington, Vermont Saturday evening. All three are still in the University of Vermont Medical Center ICU. Awartani has a bullet in his spine, according to his uncle, Rich Price, but is expected to survive
Price told WBZ-TV all three of the 20-year-old men were shot while out for a walk. They were spending the Thanksgiving weekend with his family in Burlington. The three victims grew up together and graduated from Ramallah Friends School, a Quaker-run private nonprofit school in the West Bank.
Investigators said two of the men were wearing keffiyehs, scarfs that have come to symbolize Palestinian solidarity, when they were shot. Attorney General Merrick Garland said Monday the ATF and the FBI are looking into whether this was a hate crime.
Awartani is a currently a junior at Brown University in Providence. A vigil will be held there at 4:30 p.m. Monday, a day after his classmates returned to campus from the holiday break.
"I had a friend who had a math class with him, he was kind of hurt about it. It's tough," a Brown senior told WBZ-TV. "It should not be happening doesn't matter what it's for, it should not be happening."
"It was an initial shock because we got an email first before we got back to campus. I think it's just devastating," a junior at Brown told WBZ.
"We're all just kind of surprised honestly with how it happened so suddenly and everything. We're all here for him obviously supporting him in any way we can," another student said.
Abdalhamid attends Haverford College in Pennsylvania and Tahseen Ahmed goes to Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut. Price has visited them and his nephew at the hospital.
"I heard them say to one another, 'We don't blame this guy. We just want to understand," Price told WBZ.
