(CNN) — A suspect has been arrested in the shooting of three Palestinian college students in Burlington, Vermont, in a case that has garnered national attention amid concerns about rising levels of hate crimes since the Israel-Hamas war erupted.
Jason J. Eaton, 48, was arrested Sunday afternoon near the scene of the attack, the Burlington Police Department said in a news release. Authorities said Eaton lives in an apartment building in front of the shooting scene and a search of his home uncovered evidence that gave investigators “probable cause to believe that Mr. Eaton perpetrated the shooting.”
Authorities had been investigating whether the shooting may have been a hate crime, officials said. Police did not detail early Monday what charges the suspect is facing. CNN has been unable to determine if Eaton has an attorney.
Eaton is expected to be arraigned in court on Monday. Police are also planning to hold a news conference Monday to discuss the case.
The students, all 20 years old, were walking along the street Saturday night when they were confronted by a man with a handgun, who opened fire and shot each of them “without speaking” before fleeing, according to the police department.
Two of the students were in stable condition over the weekend but the third received “much more serious injuries,” police said, noting two were shot in the torso and another in the lower extremities.
The students shot were identified as Hisham Awartani, a student at Brown University in Rhode Island; Kinnan Abdalhamid, a student at Haverford College in Pennsylvania; and Tahseen Ahmad, a student at Trinity College in Connecticut, according to the Institute for Middle East Understanding, which has provided statements on behalf of the victims’ families.
The victims’ families and several civil rights groups had been urging investigators to carefully examine whether the shooting was a hate crime, as the attack came amid a reported rise in anti-Muslim and anti-Arab bias incidents in the US since the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas ignited last month.
“In this charged moment, no one can look at this incident and not suspect that it may have been a hate-motivated crime,” Burlington Police Chief Jon Murad wrote in an earlier news release.
An attorney for the victims’ families, Abed Ayoub, said he believes the students were targeted, in part, because two of them were wearing keffiyehs – traditional Palestinian scarves.
“The suspect walked up to them and shot them. They weren’t robbed, they weren’t mugged,” Ayoub said on “CNN Newsroom” Sunday before the arrest was announced. “It was a targeted shooting and a targeted crime.”
Here’s what we know so far.
Victims were shot while on a walk
The three students were in Burlington to visit Hisham Awartani’s grandmother for the Thanksgiving holiday and were going on a walk before dinner when they were shot, according to Marwan Awartani, a former Palestinian education minister, who is speaking on behalf of the victims’ families.
Investigators determined the trio was walking on Prospect Street when they were confronted by the suspect, described as a White man, who was “ on foot in the area,” police said.
“Without speaking, (the suspect) discharged at least four rounds from the pistol and is believed to have fled on foot,” police said in a release.
Around 6:30 p.m. ET, police officers responding to reports of a shooting found two of the victims injured at the scene, police said. The third victim was found a short distance away.
All three men were taken to the University of Vermont Medical Center, where they were still being treated Sunday, according to police.
This is a developing story and will be updated.
CNN’s Dianne Gallagher, Joe Sutton, Zenebou Sylla, Eva McKend, Khalil Abdallah, Zoe Sottile and Michelle Watson contributed to this report.
