One of 3 Palestinian students shot in Vermont may never walk again after bullet hit his spine, mother says – Boston News, Weather, Sports | WHDH 7News

(CNN) — One of the three Palestinian college students who were shot while walking in Vermont may not be able to move his legs for the rest of his life after a bullet became lodged in his spine, according to his family, who shared his account of the attack with CNN.

A 20-year-old junior at Brown University, Hisham Awartani, is starting to come to terms with the “very long road he has in front of him” after he and two longtime friends from the Israeli-occupied West Bank were shot while strolling through Burlington on Saturday, his mother, Elizabeth Price, said.

“He’s just a very resilient young man and he’s been trying to keep everyone’s spirits up by joking and just trying to be as calm as possible,” Price said. “We are determined to work with him and support him and get the best possible care.”

“I believe that Hisham has the determination … to regain his legs movement, but the doctors currently say that it is not possible,” she added.

The suspect in the attack, 48-year-old Jason J. Eaton, was arrested Sunday and charged with three counts of attempted murder, to which he has pleaded not guilty. Authorities say they haven’t determined a motive in the attack but have said they are investigating whether the incident was motivated by hate.

Eaton is accused of shooting the three students as they walked in front of his apartment building Saturday night having a conversation in Arabic and English, according to Burlington Police Chief Jon Murad. Two of the men were also wearing traditional Palestinian scarves known as keffiyehs at the time of the attack, he said.

The victims’ families and several civil rights groups have called on investigators to treat the case as a hate crime, as the attack comes amid a reported rise in anti-Muslim and anti-Arab bias incidents in the United States since the war between Israel and Hamas ignited last month.

But police and prosecutors said Monday that they have yet to uncover sufficient evidence to establish Eaton’s motive.

“This absolutely was a hateful act,” Murad told CNN Monday. “But whether or not we can cross the legal threshold in order to determine that it is a hate crime is a different matter.”

The victims’ families called for “full justice and accountability” in a joint statement Monday.

“We believe a full investigation is likely to show our sons were targeted and violently attacked simply for being Palestinian,” the families’ statement said. “Our children, Palestinian children, like everyone else, deserve to feel safe.”

Victim recalls believing the shooter was going to kill him, family says

The two other victims have been identified by family representatives as Kinnan Abdalhamid, a student at Haverford College in Pennsylvania and Tahseen Ali Ahmad, a student at Trinity College in Connecticut.

In addition to Awartani’s life-altering spinal injury, the two other men were shot in the upper torso and lower extremities and hospitalized in the ICU, according to police. One of the victims was released from the hospital Monday, a source close to the victims’ families told CNN.

The students were visiting Burlington for the Thanksgiving holiday and were staying with Awartani’s uncle, Rich Price, the uncle told CNN. They had attended a birthday party for the uncle’s 8-year-old twin sons just hours before they were attacked, he said.

“We had just come back from the birthday party, and they decided to take a stroll around the block to get some fresh air,” Rich Price said. “They were just walking, talking amongst themselves. They were wearing their keffiyehs, which are traditional Palestinian scarves, and this gentleman stepped out of the dark, pulled out a handgun and fired four times.”

Awartani told his mother he “suddenly found himself on the ground” when the shooting began, she said.

Awartani recalled one of his friends “screaming with pain” from a chest wound, Elizabeth Price said. The third victim, who thought his friends had been killed, tried to escape to get help, she said.

The shooter hovered over them for a short time and Awartani thought he would “continue to shoot them and kill them,” the mother said. Once the shooter fled, Awartani was able to call 911.

Rich Price noted the three students grew up in Ramallah before coming to the US for college. “They grew up under military occupation and who would imagine that they would come to a place like this to celebrate Thanksgiving and this is when their lives would be at risk.”

Despite Awartani’s injury, his “spirits are high,” his mother said. She’s traveling from the West Bank to the US to see her son, who is expected to stay in the hospital for another month, she said.

“I want to take care of him as a mother,” she said. “I just want to be there to reassure him and just give him the comfort he needs as he goes through this difficult transition in his life.”

Electronic evidence may shed light on motive, police say

A search of Eaton’s apartment, which is next to the scene of the shooting, uncovered a pistol and ammunition that were connected to bullet casings found at the scene, according to Murad, the police chief.

But while investigators say they have found enough evidence to connect Eaton to the attack, they are still searching for a motive.

A trove of electronic devices seized from the Eaton’s apartment may offer some insight, and police plan to work with the FBI to analyze the devices, Murad said on CNN’s Erin Burnett OutFront Monday night. During their search, authorities found five cell phones, an iPad and a backpack full of hard drives, according to an affidavit.

“Are there writings, are there social media or email histories that are indicative of a thought pattern that would lead us to a motive, particularly one that is directed at a group of people?” said Murad, detailing what investigators will look for.

Federal prosecutors in Vermont are also investigating whether the shooting may have been a hate crime, officials said.

After Eaton’s arraignment on Monday, his attorney, Margaret Jansch, said it was “premature to speculate” about a possible hate crime motivation.

Eaton showed no emotion when police told him what charges he faced, Murad said. “He was affectless in his response in a way that was certainly notable to detectives.”

This is a developing story and will be updated.

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