Man who claimed Mossad and CIA told him to shoot Palestinian students convicted of attempted murder

A jury in the US state of Vermont has found Jason Eaton guilty of three counts of attempted second-degree murder for shooting three Palestinian students as they walked near his Burlington home in November 2023. Jurors rejected his defence that he was legally insane at the time.

The verdict came yesterday after a week-long trial in Chittenden Superior Court. The three victims, Hisham Awartani, Tahseen Aliahmad and Kinnan Abdalhamid, testified, as did psychiatric experts called by the defence and prosecution. Eaton, 51, did not dispute that he was the gunman.

Eaton faces up to life in prison without parole on each count. He remains in custody, and a sentencing date has yet to be set.

His lawyers said he had experienced a psychotic break after losing his job shortly before the shooting. Eaton claimed that the CIA and Israel’s Mossad had sent him instructions over an FM radio and that God had commanded him to protect Jewish neighbours. Prosecutors disputed that he was legally insane and argued that he knew his actions were criminal.

Read: US man sentenced to 53 years for killing Palestinian American boy

The three friends, all 20 at the time, grew up together in Ramallah in the occupied West Bank before moving to the US for university. They were visiting Awartani’s grandmother in Burlington for Thanksgiving when they went for an evening walk, speaking a mix of Arabic and English. Two were wearing the traditional Palestinian keffiyeh.

Awartani told the court that Eaton came down from his porch, approached them without speaking and opened fire. Awartani was left paralysed from the waist down. Aliahmad and Abdalhamid were also wounded.

After the verdict, Awartani’s mother, Elizabeth Price, read a statement on behalf of the three families. “After three years of sorrow, loss, and struggle, our families finally feel relief,” she said. She added that the verdict could not erase the harm they had suffered but affirmed that Eaton was responsible for his actions.

The November 2023 shooting prompted calls for a hate crime investigation, but Eaton was not charged with a hate crime. His motive remains contested. During the trial, prosecutors cited a recording in which Eaton, speaking after the shooting, said the students were dressed “like terrorists” and referred to a keffiyeh as “that thing on your head”. Price said his remarks reinforced the families’ belief that he targeted the men because they were Palestinian.

The shooting occurred amid heightened concern about anti-Palestinian and anti-Muslim attacks in the US following the start of Israel’s geocide in Gaza. Weeks earlier, six-year-old Palestinian American Wadee Alfayoumi was fatally stabbed by his family’s landlord in Illinois. The landlord, Joseph Czuba, was convicted of murder, attempted murder and hate crimes, and sentenced to 53 years in prison in May 2025