Police arrested the man suspected of having shot and wounded three students of Palestinian origin on Saturday in Vermont (north-east), possibly targeted because of their community affiliation in a context of an increase in racist acts in the United States since the start of the war in Gaza.
The suspect, identified as Jason Eaton, 48, is due to appear before a judge on Monday, said Burlington city police, who announced they had arrested him on Sunday after a search of his home. “An investigation is underway, including whether this was a criminal act motivated by hate,” Justice Minister Merrick Garland said Monday.
This man is suspected of having opened fire on three young men who were spending the Thanksgiving holidays in Burlington, 70 km from the Canadian border. Aged 20, they were walking “when they found themselves faced with a white man armed with a pistol” who “without speaking to them, fired at least four bullets before fleeing apparently on foot”, according to the city police. As of Sunday, two of the victims were in “stable condition” and the third suffered “more serious injuries.”
The Burlington police chief assured that, in the current context of war between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip, “no one could look at this act without suspecting that it could have been a crime motivated by hate.” specifying, however, that the police did not yet have any elements suggesting a precise motive.
High tensions in the United States
During the attack, two of the three victims wore a keffiyeh, a traditional Palestinian scarf. Two of them are American and the third resides legally in the United States, according to authorities.
In the United States, the war in Gaza is causing strong tensions, particularly on university campuses, and has led to an increase in anti-Semitic and Islamophobic acts. In early October, a six-year-old Muslim boy was stabbed near Chicago by a septuagenarian, a crime 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 noted a very clear increase in the number and frequency of threats against Jewish, Muslim and Arab communities across the country since October 7,” noted the Minister of Justice on Monday, referring to the date of the unprecedented attack by the Islamist movement Hamas in Israel which was followed by intense bombings and a ground offensive by the Israeli army in the Gaza Strip. “We are closely monitoring what impact the conflict in the Middle East may have on terrorist organizations and violent extremists in the United States and abroad,” he assured.
In a statement, the families of the three Burlington victims asked police on Sunday that the case be treated by authorities “as an attack motivated by hate.” In the United States, this qualification designates an act against a person targeted because of certain characteristics of their identity such as race, religion, nationality, sexual orientation or disability.
Considered a federal offense with aggravating circumstances, it carries more severe sentences. The Arab-American Committee Against Discrimination, for its part, said it had “reason to believe that this shooting took place because the victims are Arabs.”