Victim in Burlington shootings speaks out

BURLINGTON, Vt. (WCAX) - One of the three victims in last weekend’s shooting in Burlington of three Palestinian American college students is speaking out about the incident.

Tahseen Ahmad, Hisham Awartani, and Kinnan Abdalhamid were shot Saturday night while walking along North Prospect Street. Jason Eaton, 48, of Burlington is accused of attempted murder after police say he fired a gun at the 20-year-old friends.

Abdalhamid told CBS News he was able to make it onto the porch of a nearby home and call for help. “I knocked there and they kind of stared at me - the people inside at first. I was like, I told them this -please, please, I need, I need y’all to come out. They came out and I said, ‘Hey, I need y’all to call 911, my friends were shot, they might be dead.’ And they were like, ‘Okay, okay, sit down. And there was a chair on the left side that they told me to sit down on. When I sat down, I felt this extreme spike of pain and that’s when I realized I might be shot. So, I put my hand where the pain was and then I looked at it and it was soaked in blood. I was like, holy {expletive,} I’m shot.”

Abdalhamid, who was shot in his glute and has since been released from the hospital. Ahmad was shot in the chest and Awartani may be paralyzed after a bullet lodged near his spine. Both remain hospitalized.

Reporter Errol Barnett has more of the interview with Abdalhamid Thursday night on the CBS Evening News.

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