On Thanksgiving weekend in 2023, three college students, Hisham Awartani, Kinnan Abdalhamid, and Tahseen Aliahmad, were walking down a street in Burlington, Vermont, speaking English and Arabic. Two of them were wearing keffiyehs, the traditional Palestinian scarf. A man approached and opened fire, hitting all three, without saying a word before or after. Awartani was left paralyzed from the waist down. On the 911 call he made from the ground, he told the dispatcher, "I think I'm gonna die," according to VTDigger.

The man charged in the shooting, Jason Eaton, is now standing trial on three counts of attempted second-degree murder. His attorneys are arguing he was legally insane, hearing voices that told him to act. Prosecutors say he knew exactly what he was doing.

Whatever the jury decides about Eaton's mental state, the fact remains: three young men were shot because of how they looked, what they wore, and the language they spoke. That is not a random act of violence, it's targeted violence rooted in bias, and it deserves to be treated that way in how this case is charged and prosecuted.

We're asking the Chittenden County State's Attorney's Office to pursue this case to the fullest extent the law allows, and to formally recognize the bias motivation behind the attack. Awartani, Abdalhamid, and Aliahmad, and every Palestinian and Arab American who now walks a little more afraid, deserve to see that justice accounts for why this happened, not just that it happened.

Sign the petition to demand full accountability for the shooting of Hisham Awartani, Kinnan Abdalhamid, and Tahseen Aliahmad, before another act of hate goes unanswered.