(New York) A forty-year-old was charged Monday in Vermont with attempted murder after shooting three students, possibly targeted because of their Palestinian origin, in a context of an increase in racist acts in the United States since the start of the war in Gaza.
This attack sparked outrage, with President Joe Biden saying he was “horrified” according to his spokesperson.
U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland said an “investigation is underway, including whether this was a hate crime.”
The suspect, identified as Jason Eaton, 48, was arrested Sunday evening after a search of his home, near where the incident took place the previous evening, Burlington police said.
PHOTO JUDICIAL POWER OF VERMONT VIA REUTERS
Jason Eaton appeared in court via video from the Vermont Correctional Facility in Swanton on November 27.
He is suspected of having, in this northern Vermont town, fired four times with a .380 caliber handgun at the three students, aged 20, hitting all three.
“One of them suffered injuries whose after-effects could follow him for the rest of his life,” Police Chief Jon Murad said at a press conference. The other two were described Sunday as being in “stable condition.”
The three students, who were spending the Thanksgiving holidays in Burlington, near the Canadian border, were walking down the street talking in English and Arabic when the suspect appeared in front of them, without speaking, and opened the fire before fleeing, explained Mr. Murad. Two victims wore a keffiyeh, the traditional Palestinian headscarf.
Two of them are American and the third resides legally in the United States, according to authorities.
The suspect was kept in detention without the possibility of release on bail, according to the American press.
“Hateful act”
“Although we do not yet have evidence to say that this was a hate crime, it is very clear that we are dealing with an act of hate,” said the Chittenden County Prosecutor. , Sarah George.
In the United States, a hate crime is an act against a person targeted because of certain characteristics of their identity such as ethnicity, religion, nationality, sexual orientation or disability.
In a statement, the families of the three victims asked the authorities on Sunday to treat the case as such.
The Arab American Committee Against Discrimination said it had “reason to believe that this shooting took place because the victims are Arab.”
“The fact that something like this happened to them shows the level of tension and hatred that exists in certain parts” of the United States, said an uncle of one victim, Rich Price.
Radi Tamimi, uncle of another victim, said his nephew grew up in the occupied West Bank. “We always thought that bringing him here would be the right decision” for his safety, he said. “In a way, we feel betrayed. »
In the United States, the context of war between Israel and the Islamist movement Hamas in the Gaza Strip since October 7 has given rise to strong tensions and has given rise to an increase in anti-Semitic and Islamophobic acts.
In early October, a six-year-old Palestinian-American boy was stabbed near Chicago by a septuagenarian charged with a racist crime, an act directly linked to the ongoing war in Gaza according to police.
In California, a professor is being prosecuted for involuntary manslaughter after the death of a Jewish man during a rally in early November which turned into an altercation between pro-Palestinians and pro-Israelis.
“We have all seen a sharp increase in the number and frequency of threats against Jewish, Muslim and Arab communities across the country since October 7,” Attorney General Garland noted Monday.
“There is understandable fear in these communities,” he added.
Merrick Garland assured that the Department of Justice “is closely monitoring what impact the conflict in the Middle East may have on terrorist organizations and violent extremists in the United States and abroad.”