Three young students, 20 years old, wearing the Palestinian headscarf, were shot by a white man in Burlington, in the state of Vermont, when they were on their way to a dinner on Saturday night. The FBI has opened an investigation, including a possible hate crime, while the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) offered a $10,000 reward for any information about the gunman.
“Due to the unprecedented increase in anti-Muslim and anti-Palestinian hate and violence we have seen in recent weeks, local, state and federal law enforcement must investigate possible bias in this shooting,” CAIR said in a statement.
Since the Hamas attack occurred on October 7 and Israel responded with indiscriminate retaliation, anti-Semitic and anti-Muslim complaints and expressions have grown alarmingly. Demonstrations on both sides have highlighted this trend and have provoked more than one violent chapter in the United States.
According to witnesses, the three young Palestinians (two have American nationality and the third is a legal resident) were walking along Prospect Street in Burlington when they were confronted by a man with a gun. He opened fire without saying a word, said Burlington Police Chief Jon Murad. He fled on foot.
All three were taken to Vermont University Hospital. Two of the victims were hit in the torso and the other was injured in the lower part of the extremities. Two were stable while the third had more serious injuries.
The three were in the city of Burlington for the Thanksgiving weekend, guests at the home of one of them.
“Right now, no one can look at this incident and not suspect that it may be a hate crime,” said Murad, who immediately contacted federal investigators and prosecutors. The White House also indicated that the President of the United States, Joe Biden, had received information and was following the case very closely.
The Burlington police chief stressed that the three students were out of danger and under medical care. “Our priority now is to find the author,” he stressed. “We still don't know much about what happened, but we urge people not to draw conclusions from parties not involved in this matter,” he warned in a statement. There were no further indications of the possible motive, since the author did not make any statement.
One of the city's personalities, Senator Bernie Sanders, described this event as “shocking and deeply disturbing.” “Hate has no place here, or anywhere else,” he wrote in a post on his X account.
In a joint statement, the families of the three victims said they were devastated by what happened, “because our children were robbed” because of their appearance. The families identified the three injured as Hisham Awartani, who studies at Brown University (Rhode Island); Kinnan Abdalhamid, student at Haverford College (Pennsylvania); and Tahseen Ahmed, who is at Trinity (Connecticut). All three are in their second year of college.
All three graduated from high school at Ramallah Friends School, a non-profit Quaker leadership school located in Ramallah, West Bank.
Their families described them as very dedicated students and focused on their futures.” They also requested that the authorities treat this incident as a case of hate. “We will not rest until the perpetrator is brought to justice,” they stated. “We need our children to be protected and this horrible crime not to be repeated,” they insisted.
