Two of the men were in stable condition and the other suffered ‘much more serious injuries,’ Burlington Police Chief Jon Murad said in a statement Sunday.

By Kathy McCormack, The Associated Press

Police have arrested a suspect in the shooting of three young men of Palestinian descent who were attending a Thanksgiving holiday gathering near the University of Vermont campus Saturday evening.

Agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives arrested Jason J. Eaton, 48, while conducting a search of the shooting area in Burlington at 3:38 p.m. Sunday, the Burlington Police Department said in a statement.

Authorities collected evidence during a search of Eaton’s apartment in a building in front of the shooting location. He is scheduled to be arraigned Monday, police said.

The attack that injured the three men around 6:25 p.m. Saturday may have been a hate crime, authorities previously said.

Two of the men were in stable condition and the other suffered “much more serious injuries,” Burlington Police Chief Jon Murad said in a statement Sunday. The three, all age 20, were walking during a visit to the home of one of the victim’s relatives when they were confronted by a white man with a handgun, police said.

“Without speaking, he discharged at least four rounds from the pistol and is believed to have fled,” Murad said. “All three victims were struck, two in their torsos and one in the lower extremities.”

The victims are all of Palestinian descent. Two are U.S. citizens and the third is a legal resident. Two of the men were wearing the black-and-white Palestinian keffiyeh scarves, Murad said.

Burlington Mayor Miro Weinberger is expected to join Murad at a press conference on Monday to discuss the investigation.

Murad, who expressed sympathies for the victims and their families, said there is no additional information to suggest a motive.

“In this charged moment, no one can look at this incident and not suspect that it may have been a hate-motivated crime. And I have already been in touch with federal investigatory and prosecutorial partners to prepare for that if it’s proven,” he said.

“The fact is that we don’t yet know as much as we want to right now,” Murad added. “But I urge the public to avoid making conclusions based on statements from uninvolved parties who know even less.”

The American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee released a statement Sunday saying that the victims were Palestinian American college students and that there is “reason to believe this shooting occurred because the victims are Arab.”

A man shouted and harassed the victims, who were conversing in Arabic, then proceeded to shoot them, the committee’s statement said.

The FBI in Albany, New York, posted a statement late Sunday on X, formerly Twitter, saying the bureau is actively investigating the shooting with the Burlington Police Department, the ATF, and other federal, state and local agencies.

The White House said President Joe Biden was briefed on the shooting and would continue to receive law enforcement updates.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations released a statement offering a $10,000 reward for information leading to an arrest or conviction of the person or people responsible for the shootings.

The Institute for Middle East Understanding posted a statement on X that the institute said was from the victims’ families.

“We are extremely concerned about the safety and well-being of our children,” the statement said. “We call on law enforcement to conduct a thorough investigation, including treating this as a hate crime. We will not be comfortable until the shooter is brought to justice.”

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Jewish students were expelled from student clubs, harassed by a teaching assistant, and the campus Hillel center was vandalized.

By Dion J. Pierre, The Algemeiner

The US Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) has opened a formal civil rights investigation into allegations of antisemitism at the University of Vermont (UVM).

According to a complaint filed by the Brandeis Center in October 2021, UVM’s Hillel Center was vandalized and Jewish students who embrace Zionism were harassed by a teaching assistant and expelled from student clubs, including UVM Empowering Survivors, a sexual assault awareness group.

Hostility toward Jews, the Brandeis Center said, was so severe that Jewish students concealed their identities and weighed leaving the university altogether.

“All of these incidents — the exclusion of Jewish Zionist students from UVM student groups, the targeting of the Hillel building, and the TA’s social media posts — have been reported to the UVM administration,” the complaint said. “To date, however, the university has taken no steps to rectify the situation.”

Ultimately, the complaint continued, the exclusion of Jewish students based on the Zionist element of their identity has denied them “equal access to educational opportunities and services,” violating Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

The incidents OCR will review go back to 2021, when a teaching assistant wrote that she considered penalizing students who embraced Zionism and called on other students to desecrate the Israeli flag and cyberbully them.

“Is it unethical for me, a TA, to not give Zionists credit for participation???,” the teaching assistant wrote to an unnamed recipient.

Later, on Twitter, she said “serotonin rush of bullying Zionists on the public domain…next step is to make zionism…worthy of public condemnation.”

That same spring, administrators of UVM Empowering Survivors’ Instagram page “blocked” Jewish students to, it said, “hold our peers accountable for their pro-Israel or Zionist stances.”

The group’s action triggered a cascade of bigoted events. The UVM Revolutionary Socialist Union (RSU) later announced that it would not accept Zionists and amended its constitution to require students to denounce Zionism as a condition of membership in the group. Just months later, a mob of students hurled stones and doused with a sticky substance the university’s residence for students enrolled in the Exploring Jewish Culture Program, which is located in UVM’s Burack Hillel Center.

“Are you Jewish?” one rock throwing student yelled at a Jewish student who peered out a window that had been struck to ask the group to end the attack.

“Jewish students were being told they’re not welcome, and the university just refused to listen, causing the students to feel ignored and shunted aside,” Brandeis Center president Alyza D. Lewin told The Algemeiner on Tuesday. “It didn’t matter how many times they tried to explain that Judaism is more than a religion and that the discrimination targeting them is based on their ancestry and ethnicity.”

OCR’s investigation, which started in August, is the latest high profile investigation of antisemitism at an American university. That same month, the Brandeis Center requested another civil rights inquiry into SUNY New Paltz’s handling of a case in which two Jewish women were kicked out of a sexual assault awareness group because they are Zionists.

“This investigation is going to go a very long way toward raising awareness and educating the public, and particular, university administrators, to see this kind of antisemitism and realize that they must take steps to address it,” Lewin said.

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