Jury convicts Vermont man of attempted murder in shooting of 3 Palestinian students

Glenn Russell/VTDigger/Pool/AP

A jury on Monday convicted a Vermont man of attempted murder in the shootings of three Palestinian college students who were walking near his home, rejecting an insanity defense rooted in his claims that he was acting on orders from the CIA and Mossad.

Jason Eaton, 51, faces up to life in prison in the November 2023 attack near the University of Vermont campus in Burlington, which left Hisham Awartani paralyzed from the waist down and his friends, Tahseen Aliahmad and Kinnan Abdalhamid, wounded.

The jury deliberated for several hours before reaching its verdict after a weeklong trial that saw testimony from the three wounded men and psychiatric experts called by the defense and prosecution.

Eaton was ordered jailed pending sentencing, which has yet to be scheduled. He stared ahead blankly as the verdict was read. Awartani and Aliahmad, sitting in the front row of the courtroom gallery, smiled and hugged people around them.

Eaton had pleaded not guilty but did not dispute that he was the shooter. His lawyers argued that he should be found not guilty by reason of insanity, pointing to his claims that the U.S. and Israeli intelligence agencies transmitted orders to shoot the men to him via FM radio and that God was commanding him to protect his Jewish neighbors.

Had he been found not guilty by reason of insanity, he could have been ordered to undergo mental health treatment.

Institute for Middle East Understanding

Hate crimes explained: Could suspect who shot 3 Palestinian students be charged with a hate crime?

The shooting, a few days after Thanksgiving, shook Burlington, Vermont , and reverberated in the West Bank, where the three wounded men grew up and became friends as schoolmates in Ramallah before moving to the U.S. for college.

The November 2023 shooting, weeks after the start of the Israel-Hamas war, spawned calls for a hate crime investigation.

But no hate crime charges were filed as questions persisted about whether anti-Palestinian animus, an altered mental state or something else had compelled Eaton to open fire on Awartani, Aliahmad and Abdalhamid, who were all 20 at the time.

Eaton’s lawyers argued he was suffering from a delusional, psychotic disorder after losing his job at a credit union two weeks before the shooting.

While listening to a local NPR affiliate, Eaton believed he was hearing messages he attributed to the CIA, defense lawyer Joshua O’Hara said. At first, the messages were encouraging and validating, the lawyer said, but subsequent messages turned dark, insisting that Eaton “has to go out and shoot somebody.”

Authorities found three shotguns in Eaton’s apartment and a Ruger .380-caliber handgun that crime lab testing concluded was the gun used in the shooting, prosecutor Sally Adams said. Eaton had purchased the gun seven months earlier from a Vermont gun store.

1 of 3 Palestinian college students shot in Vermont released from hospital on same day suspect pleads not guilty

Awartani, Aliahmad and Abdalhamid, all of whom are now 23, told jurors of their holiday weekend visit to Awartani’s grandmother’s house, a trip to a bowling alley to celebrate his twin cousins’ birthday, and the walk they took near the University of Vermont campus after dusk that ended in bloodshed.

Awartani, who was studying at Brown University in Rhode Island at the time, said they were smoking cigarettes and speaking a mix of English and Arabic. Two of them said they were wearing traditional Palestinian scarves known as keffiyehs. Awartani said he first noticed Eaton standing on a porch as they approached the apartment house where he lived.

Within seconds, Awartani said, Eaton was off the porch and walking toward them. His face was expressionless and he didn’t say anything. As Eaton got to about five to 10 feet (1.5 to 3 meters) away, “he pulled out a handgun and started shooting at us,” said Awartani, who was paralyzed from the waist down in the shooting and now uses a wheelchair.

Jacob Pyne, who lived in a different apartment in the same house as Eaton, testified that he heard four to six gunshots, followed by footsteps going up the stairs of the apartment house. He said he ran outside and heard two men speaking, one of whom was more vocal and yelling, “I’ve been shot, help me.” He then brought the men blankets and called 911.

Abdalhamid, a student at Haverford College near Philadelphia, said he fled and hid behind another home after seeing Aliahmad fall to the ground. He said he only realized later when he sat down that he had also been wounded. Awartani was shot in the chest and the bullet ricocheted off his scapula, causing paraplegia in his spinal cord. Aliahmad, who was a student at Trinity College in Connecticut, was struck in the collarbone, and Abdalhamid was shot in the right buttock.

Glenn Russell/VTDigger/Pool/AP

周一，陪审团裁定佛蒙特州一名男子枪击三名在他家附近行走的巴勒斯坦大学生的谋杀未遂罪名成立，驳回了他以精神错乱为由的辩护，该辩护声称他是奉中央情报局和摩萨德的命令行事。

51 岁的杰森·伊顿 (Jason Eaton) 因 2023 年 11 月在佛蒙特大学伯灵顿校区附近发生的袭击事件面临终身监禁，该袭击导致希沙姆·阿瓦尔塔尼 (Hisham Awartani) 腰部以下瘫痪，他的朋友塔辛·阿利亚迈德 (Tahseen Aliahmad) 和金南·阿卜杜勒哈米德 (Kinnan Abdalhamid) 受伤。

经过长达一周的审判，陪审团经过数小时的商议后作出裁决。审判期间，三名受伤男子以及控辩双方传唤的精神病专家均出庭作证。

伊顿被判处监禁，等待宣判，宣判日期尚未确定。宣判时，他目光呆滞地望着前方。坐在旁听席前排的阿瓦尔塔尼和阿利亚赫迈德面带微笑，拥抱了周围的人。

伊顿拒不不认罪，但并未否认自己是枪手。他的律师辩称，他应因精神错乱而被判无罪，并指出他声称美国和以色列情报机构通过调频广播向他下达了枪击命令，而且上帝命令他保护他的犹太邻居。

如果他因精神错乱而被判无罪，他可能会被勒令接受精神健康治疗。

中东理解研究所

仇恨犯罪详解：枪击3名巴勒斯坦学生的嫌疑人是否会被控以仇恨犯罪？

感恩节后几天发生的这起枪击事件震惊了佛蒙特州伯灵顿，并在约旦河西岸引起了强烈反响。三名受伤男子在约旦河西岸长大，在拉马拉上学时成为朋友，之后前往美国上大学。

2023 年 11 月发生的这起枪击事件，发生在以色列与哈马斯战争爆发几周后，引发了要求对仇恨犯罪进行调查的呼声。

但并未提出仇恨犯罪指控，人们仍然质疑，究竟是反巴勒斯坦的敌意、精神状态改变还是其他原因，迫使伊顿向当时均为 20 岁的阿瓦尔塔尼、阿利亚赫迈德和阿卜杜勒哈米德开枪。

伊顿的律师辩称，他在枪击事件发生前两周失去了信用社的工作，之后患上了妄想性精神病。

辩护律师约书亚·奥哈拉表示，伊顿在收听当地一家NPR附属电台时，认为自己听到了一些来自中央情报局的信息。律师说，起初这些信息令人鼓舞，并给予他肯定，但随后的信息变得阴暗，坚持要求伊顿“必须出去杀人”。

检察官萨莉·亚当斯表示，警方在伊顿的公寓里发现了三支霰弹枪和一支鲁格.380口径手枪，经犯罪实验室检测，该手枪被认定为作案枪支。伊顿七个月前从佛蒙特州的一家枪支商店购买了这支枪。

在佛蒙特州遭枪击的三名巴勒斯坦大学生中，有一人当天出院，嫌疑人拒不不认罪。

现年 23 岁的阿瓦尔塔尼、阿利亚赫迈德和阿卜杜勒哈米德向陪审团讲述了他们在假期周末去阿瓦尔塔尼祖母家的行程，以及去保龄球馆庆祝他双胞胎表兄弟的生日，还有他们在黄昏后在佛蒙特大学校园附近散步，最终导致流血事件的经过。

当时在罗德岛布朗大学就读的阿瓦尔塔尼说，他们当时在抽烟，说着英语和阿拉伯语混杂的话。其中两人说他们戴着巴勒斯坦传统头巾，也就是所谓的“凯菲耶”。阿瓦尔塔尼说，当他们走近他居住的公寓楼时，他第一次注意到伊顿站在门廊上。

阿瓦塔尼说，几秒钟之内，伊顿就下了门廊，朝他们走来。他面无表情，一言不发。阿瓦塔尼说，当伊顿走到离他们大约1.5到3米远的地方时，“他掏出一把手枪，开始向我们射击”。阿瓦塔尼在枪击事件中腰部以下瘫痪，现在只能依靠轮椅出行。

住在伊顿同一栋楼里不同公寓的雅各布·派恩作证说，他听到了四到六声枪响，随后听到脚步声从公寓楼的楼梯上传来。他说他跑到外面，听到两个男人在说话，其中一个声音更大，喊着“我中枪了，救命！”。然后他拿来毯子给那两个男人，并拨打了911报警。

阿卜杜勒哈米德是费城附近哈弗福德学院的一名学生，他说看到阿利亚赫迈德倒地后，他立即逃跑并躲到另一栋房子后面。他说，直到坐下后才意识到自己也受了伤。阿瓦尔塔尼胸部中弹，子弹击中肩胛骨后反弹，导致脊髓下瘫痪。阿利亚赫迈德是康涅狄格州三一学院的学生，锁骨中弹，阿卜杜勒哈米德右臀部中弹。