Crime

The arrest of Jason J. Eaton

By on • ( 30 Comments )

by Mike Donoghue

BURLINGTON — A Burlington man, charged with three counts of attempted second degree murder in the wounding of three Palestinian college students visiting Vermont over the Thanksgiving weekend, told federal agents, “I’ve been waiting for you” when they came to his home on Sunday, court records show.

Jason J. Eaton, 48, of 69 North Prospect Street then told the special agents of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives that, “I’d like a lawyer” during his short verbal exchange with them at the apartment house near the University of Vermont campus.

Eaton declined to his name during his encounter with ATF at about 3:40 p.m., but he did match the general description provided by the three victims in the unprovoked attack.  ATF Special Agents Sam Brown and Eric Brimo took Eaton, who was shaking, into custody about 21 hours after the shooting, officials said.  Eaton was transported to the Burlington Police Department where he continued to refuse to offer any relevant comments.

A subsequent court-ordered search of Eaton’s apartment uncovered several firearms, including a Ruger .380 pistol, and special ammunition made by Hornady with a bright red tip on each projectile, Burlington Police said.  Tests conducted by the ATF showed the seized handgun was used to wound the three students, records show.

The ATF also determined Eaton legally purchased the handgun at the Powderhorn Outdoor Sports Center in Williston on April 6, Burlington Detective Cpl. Krystal A. Wrinn in court papers.

While many government officials and local residents have said they believe the shooting is a hate crime, Eaton is not charged under Vermont’s hate crime statute.  His silence when confronted by the ATF agents appeared to have an impact on the decision not to charge the case as a hate crime.

The gunman never uttered a word before opening fire shortly before 6:30 p.m. Saturday.

Chittenden County State’s Attorney Sarah George said negative comments sometimes made by criminal defendants during the course of a crime or shortly after help prosecutors prove the extra element of a hate crime charge.

In a statement from the shooting victims’ families, they have said, “We call on law enforcement to conduct a thorough investigation, including treating this as a hate crime.”

Little is known about Eaton, Burlington Police Chief Jon Murad said during a brief question-and-answer period at the end of a limited news conference.  Eaton, who lived alone, used to reside in the Syracuse, N.Y. area, he said.  The chief said he thought Eaton has been in Vermont since the summer, but he does have a traffic ticket from 2016 or 2017.  Police had no indication of any religion for Eaton, Murad said.

Earlier in the day, Eaton said little during his court arraignment, which lasted about 90 seconds.  

He is charged with wounding the trio of 20-year-old students:

— Hisham Awartani, a student at Brown University had a shot lodged by his spine and faces a long recovery.

— Tahseen Aliahmad,  a student at Trinity College, was shot in the upper right chest and remains in pain.

— Kinnan Abdalhamid, a student at Haverford College in Pennsylvania had a bullet pass in and out of his right buttock.

A family relative said different spellings for the names of the students have appeared in the media, but he attributed it to translation issues.

The three young men were in Burlington visiting a relative of one of the students on North Prospect Street.  The men reported they had gone for a short walk to have a cigarette when a man walked toward them, police said.  No words were exchanged, and the man pulled out a black handgun from about two yards away Awartani reported when interviewed at the hospital, Wrinn said in a court affidavit.

Abdalhamid reported he saw the gunman on the porch of a white house and he was staring at the trio, Wrinn said.  The man stumbled down the stairs and began shooting, Wrinn said.

All three victims gave the same general description of a young white man, average to skinny size, about 5 feet 10 inches, short with some facial hair, and possibly a scruffy beard.  He was wearing a gray zip-up sweatshirt and dark pants. 

The shooting happened about 3 blocks south from the Ohavi Zedek Synagogue — near the University of Vermont main campus.

During the court hearing, Superior Court Judge A. Gregory Rainville agreed to continue to hold Eaton without bail at the Northwest State Correctional Facility in St. Albans Town.

Rainville also approved a request by a public defender for a hearing on the state’s motion to hold without bail filed by Chief Deputy State’s Attorney Sally Adams. Rainville said the hearing would be held within in a few days, subject to the defense being ready.

The court hearing attracted national and international news reporters, including NBC, ABC, CBS, Fox News, MSNBC, Reuters and the New York Times.

Eaton, who appeared by video from the state prison, had been ordered jailed without bail early Monday on three counts of attempted second degree murder based on a lodging affidavit by Wrinn, records show.

Burlington Police had classified the case as three counts of aggravated assault, according to its news release Monday.

It was unclear what sparked the extra interest of the two ATF agents, Brown and Brimo, for Eaton on Sunday afternoon.

When the head of the ATF in Vermont was asked at the news conference if it was experience, training or something else that caused their interest to increase, U.S. Attorney Nikolas “Kolo” Kerest cut off the ATF boss and said he would field the question.  Kerest then indicated he would not answer it.  Kerest failed to respond when asked why he was muzzling the ATF and later told Vermont New First that there was an agreement on who would be allowed to speak  at the press conference.

No charges have been filed by the U.S. Attorney in Vermont, but there is considerable national and international interest. U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland has said the Justice Department is investigating whether it is a hate crime.

Burlington Mayor Miro Weinberger offered an apology for starting the noontime news conference late, but he said he was on the phone with President Joe Biden discussing the shooting case.

Weinberger, who is considering a run for governor, did not offer any specific details about the phone call.

One of Weinberger’s staff members later motioned for him to end the press conference after about 15 minutes of limited questings from the media, which helped fill the Contois Auditorium at Burlington City Hall.

Murad, Weinberger, George, Kerest and two relatives of the victims had made about 25 minutes of opening remarks, including the shock and sadness the shooting has caused and the outpouring of support the families have received.

About a half dozen top federal law enforcement officials, including from out of state, were invited to stand up front at the news conference, but none were given a chance to talk about the efforts of their agencies in assisting in the case.  They included the head of the ATF for New England, who traveled from Boston, and the two top ranking special agents from the FBI in Albany, N.Y., which oversees Vermont. 

The 3 wounded students had graduated from Ramallah Friends School, a Quaker-run private nonprofit school in the city of Ramallah in the occupied West Bank, according to the school.

Husam Zomlot, the Palestinian ambassador to the United Kingdom, posted on X about the incident, also naming the students and identifying them as “three young Palestinian men.” 

He said the students were headed to a family dinner in Burlington when shot about 6:25 p.m. Saturday.

“Their crime? Wearing the Palestinian keffiyeh. They are critically injured,” Zomlot posted. Keffiyeh is an Arab kerchief or scarf worn as a headdress.

“The hate crimes against Palestinians must stop. Palestinians everywhere need protection,” Zomlot wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter.

Two victims were found at the shooting scene and were attended to by neighbors that heard the shots and came outside to help.  The third student fled through backyards and was found nearby — behind 77 Mansfield Avenue. He asked a neighbor to call 911.

At least two of the victims were wearing Palestine scarfs known as keffiyehs on their heads at the time of the shootings.

ATF special agents were called to the scene to help the short-staffed Burlington Police. The FBI also later joined the investigation.

Members of the Chittenden County Violent Crime Task Force, which was formed by the ATF earlier this year because of the large number of Burlington area shootings, several of them gang-related, also were called out. The task force is staffed by members from the ATF, state police, game wardens, state motor vehicle enforcement inspectors, and local police officers from municipal departments, including South Burlington and Milton.

A Vermont Fish and Wildlife warden with his K-9 was among those searching the crime area and appeared to pick up a trail for a short distance, but later lost it.  The K-9 team also reportedly located the unused bullet in the grass near Eaton’s residence.

Discover more from Vermont Daily Chronicle

Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.

Categories: Crime

30 replies »

  1. Imagine if three young white men had been shot by a Muslim. The outrage would have been far greater, and “patriots” would be ready to erect a scaffold in City Hall Park.

    • Seriously?, in that scenario, there would have been no talk of it being a hate crime, the mainstream media would have ignored it, the perpetrator would have already been let out on bail and let’s be honest, there really are not many “patriots” left in Burlington. Please update yourself on the leftist double-standard we live under in Vermont and in Biden’s Ummerica…

    • No, I don’t think so. An issue with this case is that there was an automatic assumption of Islamophobia. The chances are excellent that this is a mentally ill guy who must have thought this was a good idea. I seriously doubt they will find anything that shows any previous behavior that targets Muslims but they will find obvious mental health problems. It doesn’t make it alright of course. But the issue here is probably mental health; not a MAGA Muslim hating far right agenda.

    • Yes and the anti-American androids of Burlington will beat this gunner to death because the narrative will be that he was MAGA.

    • @ Briancostello

      It doesn’t take a “houseful of guns” for a mentally ill person to do harm. In places where guns aren’t as common they do mass stabbing attacks with knives or mow people down with a truck. All that’s required is intent to do harm and a way can be found.

  2. Well, of course, 3 Palestinians got shot in Burlington, the Virtue Signal capital of Vermont. Now there can be all kinds of candle-lit Kumbaya sessions for the unfortunate three, and we can all forget how 1400 Israelis were slaughtered while 200,000 were displaced. Their only crime was not for sporting keffiyahs, and this trio, who could be Hamas fanboys, will gain the key to the Queen (of Babylon) City.

    • JethroTull, Twenty thousand Palestinians, 8000 of them children, have been ethnically cleansed in Gaza since October 8. They are just as much human beings as Israelis are and they have lived under the occupation of their land for 75 years. I’m not sure if the name of what you are stating is bigotry or racism, but it is unworthy behavior. Americans bear responsibility for this ongoing genocide because it could not be happening with the support of our government.

    • Mary

      Your numbers are bogus and are from Hamas, the genocidal maniacs who perpetrated the Oct 7 massacre of ISRAELIS. The only ethnic cleansing going on has been of Israelis by Hamas. There is absolutely no intent or evidence to support your defamation that Gazans are being ethnically cleansed. It’s a war. People die.

    • Ms. Stowe, I would like to make clear some points that you make in your comment to Jethro Tull. By definition ethnic cleansing is: “is the systematic forced removal of ethnic, racial, or religious groups from a given area, with the intent of making a region ethnically homogeneous”. What has happened is called war. And no civilization on the face of the earth has done more to prevent the death of innocent civilians than the IDF and the Israeli People. Well documented. War is hell. But you get war when you invade another country and kill 1400 civilians and then boast about it on social media. I don’t care who the combatants are and who the victims are, it is all wrong no matter who does it. And no one is entirely innocent in this scenario. Nothing is that black and white. Do you hear me? No one is exempt from guilt.
      Point of fact, it is not “their land”. They were a nomadic people until of course the hated Jews were given a land and then all bets were off. I know that is a simplification of a terrifically complicated history…but….
      And then you misuse the word genocide. Again, the definition is: “the deliberate and systematic destruction of a group of people because of their ethnicity, nationality, religion, or race.” To my best research attempts, the only group that wants genocide would be Hamas. Also, well documented.
      I absolutely do not disagree with you that there is a great deal of suffering in the Middle East. And innocents die. I don’t know how old you are or how well read you are or how much you understand human nature, but this is what people do, have done and will continue to do until we have a paradigm shift in our consciousness. It is all well and good to be high minded, sitting in your comfortable home, with all the safety of the US Armed Forces behind you. It is quite another to live in the Middle East. Ten miles from people who despise you and who would take a shovel to remove your head in a split second if they knew you were Jewish. Or trying to leave your home when warning has been given that bombs will be dropped only to be forced at gunpoint to stay by terrorists so that you may die and Allah be praised.
      I have no bigotry or racism. I hate no one, not one single human being, based on their religion, race, sex or ethnicity. I have experienced it though, many times in my life. I’m 61. What I am occasionally is, intolerant of hypocrites and people that like to beat other people over the head in self-righteous indignation.
      And we, the simple people of the US, America, do not for one solitary second bear any responsibility for the elected officials or their actions. If it were up to me, the world would look a lot different and I vote that way, but sadly, no one listens to me. So, I am stuck with whomever is put in charge. But we, the simple people…of all nations are stuck with the politicians and their games and heinous acts. So, Ms. Stowe, do not lay the blame of this situation at my feet or anyone else here. Go to your elected officials and lay the blame at their feet.
      I say this with deep respect. If I didn’t, I would not have spent the last 20 mins or so carefully crafting this reply. Please accept my words in the spirit that they are offered. I appreciate that this may feel hurtful to have someone contradict your feelings. But it is the truth. And the truth will set us free. Set us all free.

  3. @briancistellovt He had one gun. Moved here from Syracuse NY this Summer and recently purchased. Starting to think we should just ban out of staters, since almost all the gun violence comes from very recent transplants.

    • Check out France, or maybe Waukesha for mass casualty vehicular violence. Mass stabbings are fairly common in China too. Where there’s a will, there’s a way.

    • @ John

      Are you serious? Don’t you remember the horrific slaughter on the Promenade in Nice and the one on Las Ramblas in Barcelona not too many years ago? Both were perpetrated by a maniac with a truck who mowed down a huge number of innocents. That’s only 2 recent examples.

    • A mentally disturbed person killed 5 Vermont high school students on I-89 a few years back while attempting to end his own life, using an AUTOMOBILE. Timothy McVeigh used a TRUCK filled with fertilizer to blow up the Federal Building in Oklahoma City, in seconds. Owning or operating a motor vehicle is a privilege. Bearing a firearm is a CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHT. Both guns and vehicles have lawful purposes and can be used as weapons. We used to lock up people who exhibited signs of being dangerous, but many years ago we made a decision in this country to have heightened respect for the civil rights of the mentally ill, and with that decision came predictable and unpreventable consequences.

    • Rich Lachapelle, the “mentally ill” card is overused to deprive some people of their civil liberties while allowing others to get away with crimes.

    • I checked your sources: 5 killed in Wisconsin with a SUV and 5 injured in Dublin. Do you read the news? Parkland HS. Las Vegas, etc, etc.

  5. The difference in media coverage regarding this specific incident and similar violent events that have occurred in Burlington in recent years is concerning to say the least. For the first time in years despite dozens of other shootings one of my liberal parents said, “did you hear what that crazy guy in Burlington did?”. Yes it was a horrible crime but why don’t liberals see the other shootings, curb stompings, or snowshoe kleat beatings requiring hospitalization as equally concerning. Where there’s a double standard, there’s a hidden agenda.

    • @ Alex

      Exactly. While this was horrible, so are all the others but it sure doesn’t attract national let alone international attention.

  6. “When the head of the ATF in Vermont was asked at the news conference if it was experience, training or something else that caused their interest to increase, U.S. Attorney Nikolas “Kolo” Kerest cut off the ATF boss and said he would field the question. Kerest then indicated he would not answer it. Kerest failed to respond when asked why he was muzzling the ATF and later told Vermont New First that there was an agreement on who would be allowed to speak at the press conference.”

    The US Department of Justice is in charge. If you haven’t figured out by now how they operate and for whom…keep flailing and wailing based on their false narratives and emotional manipulation.

    • We have to remember that an important election is less than a year away and it is imperative that the “proper narrative” as dictated by Merrick Garland and the democrats be maintained.

  9. Web search of the Washington Post and NY Post shows 5 killed with a SUV in Wisconsin and thee injured with a knife in Dublin. How about the AR-15 mass killings across the country? Ex Parkland, Florida, Las Vegas, etc.