Republished from Nov. 30 emailed newsletter of The Vermont Standard

The shooting of three Palestinian college students in Burlington last Saturday evening has sparked anew a nationwide conversation about gun violence, mental illness, and hate crimes, particularly given the shooting incident’s occurrence in the midst of the latest Israel-Hamas war and its attendant rise in virulent — and often violent — expressions of antisemitism and anti-Arab sentiments across the nation.

For Woodstock and its surrounding communities, the tragedy of the shootings last weekend strikes chillingly close to home because the alleged shooter, Jason James Eaton, now 48, grew up in the Upper Valley, graduated from Woodstock Union High School (WUHS) in 1994, and worked steadily for roughly 13 years at Maple Crest Farm in West Woodstock. 

The farm’s proprietor, Ned Macksoud, and Eaton’s childhood friends and WUHS classmates reacted with dismay and disbelief Monday when they awoke to the news that Eaton had been arrested by Burlington Police and charged with three counts of attempted second-degree murder. 

Although Macksoud and others had not had any recent contact with Eaton, who spent most of the past 20 years living near Syracuse in upstate New York, they said categorically that the alleged shooter’s violent act — and the fact that local and federal law enforcement agencies continue to investigate the shooting as a potential hate crime — was completely out of character for the teenager and young man they knew in the 1990s and early 2000s.

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