Jury Convicts Jason Eaton in Vermont Shooting of Palestinian Students

Hisham Awartani sat in the front row of a Burlington courtroom this week and told jurors, for the record, what happened the night a stranger closed the distance to five or ten feet and opened fire without a word. Awartani, now 23, said the man stepped off the porch of an apartment building, pulled a handgun and began shooting him and his two friends as they walked near the University of Vermont campus after dark, according to testimony reported by Al Jazeera. Awartani was left paralyzed from the waist down.

A Vermont jury on Monday convicted Jason Eaton, 51, of attempted murder in the November 2023 shooting, rejecting his defense that he was not guilty by reason of insanity, Al Jazeera reported. Eaton faces up to life in prison. He was ordered jailed pending a sentencing hearing that has not yet been scheduled.

What happened the night of the shooting?

Awartani, Tahseen Aliahmad and Kinnan Abdalhamid grew up together in Ramallah, in the occupied West Bank, before enrolling at universities in the United States, according to Al Jazeera. The three were visiting Awartani's grandmother in Burlington over the Thanksgiving holiday in November 2023 when they went for an evening walk near the University of Vermont campus. Awartani testified the group was smoking cigarettes and speaking a mix of English and Arabic, and that two of the three were wearing keffiyehs. He said Eaton was standing on the porch of the building where he lived and approached the friends in silence before firing from close range.

Aliahmad and Abdalhamid were wounded. Awartani, then a student at Brown University, has not walked since. Eaton did not dispute at trial that he fired the shots; his defense instead centered on his state of mind.

What did Jason Eaton's insanity defense argue?

Eaton's lawyers told jurors he should be found not guilty by reason of insanity because he was suffering from a delusional psychotic disorder at the time of the attack, according to Al Jazeera. Joshua O'Hara, supervising attorney at the Chittenden County Public Defender Office, said Eaton believed the CIA and Israel's Mossad were transmitting messages to him through FM radio and that the agencies had assigned him what O'Hara described as "overwatch duty" to protect a Jewish family living across the street. O'Hara told the jury Eaton believed God was commanding him to act that night.

How did prosecutors respond to the insanity claim?

Prosecutors rejected the defense, telling jurors a state psychiatrist had concluded Eaton did not have a mental disease or defect meeting Vermont's legal standard for insanity, Al Jazeera reported. The state argued the evidence showed Eaton intended to kill the three men. The week-long trial included testimony from all three shooting victims and from psychiatric experts called by both the defense and the prosecution. After several hours of deliberation Monday, the jury sided with prosecutors.

What happens next for Eaton and the victims?

Eaton remains jailed with no sentencing date set, according to Al Jazeera. He faces up to life in prison once a hearing is scheduled. Awartani and Aliahmad, seated together in the courtroom's front row, smiled and embraced people around them as the verdict was read, Al Jazeera reported. The outlet's account did not detail Abdalhamid's reaction.

The shooting drew national attention in 2023 amid the Israel-Hamas war, and Al Jazeera's own related coverage at the time described the case as a hate-motivated shooting investigated by Burlington police, though the trial focused narrowly on Eaton's intent and mental state rather than a hate-crime charge.

What to watch

• A sentencing date for Eaton, which remained unscheduled as of the verdict.
• Statements from Awartani, Aliahmad or Abdalhamid, all now 23, about the verdict or their recoveries.
• Arguments at sentencing over the length of Eaton's prison term, given the attempted-murder conviction carries up to life.
• Any appeal filings from Eaton's defense following the rejection of the insanity claim.

Al Jazeera's full account of the verdict and trial testimony is available at the originating story.

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