 All right. Good afternoon everyone. My name is Mayor Murrow Weinberger, and I want to thank you all for joining us here in Burlington's City Hall. The Saturday evening shooting of three young Palestinian college students visiting Burlington on their holiday break was one of the most shocking and disturbing events in this city's history. This horrific unprovoked attack was a tragic violation of the values and character of this welcoming, inclusive community. I'm grateful that as a result of a huge coordinated law enforcement response led throughout by the Burlington Police Department that the suspected shooter was off the streets in less than 24 hours and that we were able to announce the arrest of Jason Eaton just after midnight last night. So the Burlingtonians were able and relieved to go to school and work this morning knowing that the shooter was in custody. Mr. Eaton has now been arraigned and charged with triple attempted murder charges that carry the potential of for life sentences. This case remains the top priority of the Burlington Police Department. The investigation will continue as will our collaboration with state and federal partners to give our prosecutors the strongest case possible and to ensure that Mr. Eaton is held fully accountable for his actions. These law enforcement actions while outstanding will not erase the damage done by Saturday night's violence. It is incumbent on all of us to continue supporting the victims, their families, and their communities. We are honored to be joined at this press conference by Rich Price. Rich is a longtime Burlingtonian and he was hosting the three young men during their visit and he's also the uncle of Hisham Awartani who was the most seriously injured of the three men. I believe we are also joined, although I've not had a chance to meet him directly. We've spoken by phone, but I believe Roddy Tamimi is either here or on his way. He just flew in from California this morning and he is the uncle of Kanan Abdel Hamid. Rich, and I hope you'll share this with Roddy if I don't get a chance to directly. I am so sorry that this terrible event happened to your nephews here in Burlington. Thank you for your collaboration and coordination, Rich, throughout this ordeal, including the conversations that we had yesterday. And please know that the city is going to continue to do all that we can to support you and your loved ones during their recovery. We're going to get a chance to hear directly from Rich in a minute. I hope that Burlington's Palestinian Arab and Muslim communities see in today's prompt arrest the city's commitment to justice and to keeping all members of our community safe. I have been and will continue to be in communication with Muslim leaders about how Burlington can support their communities through this time of war and high international tension. I want to thank you, Chief Murad, and the hard-working and skilled Detective Bureau led by Lieutenant Mike Belvo for once again bringing a shooting investigation to a prompt resolution. Your quick and forceful actions over a holiday weekend on the heels of the push you've been making to solve the November 12th double homicide speaks to the commitment and the character of the Burlington Police Department. I'm grateful, Chief Murad, also for your leadership creating the Chittenden County Gun Violence Task Force more than one year ago as we experienced the spike in gun violence this community has never experienced before. As you will hear in a moment when Chief Murad reviews the steps that led to the arrest of Mr. Eaton, that task force of local state and federal partners including critically both the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms as well as the FBI responded immediately to the shooting and played a critical role in the events leading to the arrest. This task force has become an invaluable part of our response to serious events at a time when we and so many other law enforcement agencies are understaffed. I'm also very grateful to State's Attorney Sarah George for working deep into the night, last night to secure search warrants and bring forward charges. Thank you, Sarah, for your partnership and leadership. And finally, I am grateful that U.S. Attorney Nicholas Karris is here with us. Not only has the U.S. Attorney been extremely supportive throughout this event, the federal government has provided enormous technical resources and law enforcement capacity throughout, and I have received direct support from the White House and the Department of Homeland Security as well as we navigated this unprecedented event. In fact, one of the reasons that this event got, this press conference got started a little bit late is that I just had an extended phone call with President Biden. It was my honor to thank the president for his leadership and caring for our community and for the victims of this terrible crime. And it was also my honor to make clear to him the critical role that federal partners have played in securing this quick arrest. We are very fortunate to have dedicated public servants working in the federal government who are committed to holding shooters accountable for gun violence despite the enormous barriers in the law and regulations that they face in trying to conduct that mission. And with that, I would like to ask Chief Murad to walk us all through the events since Saturday night that led us to now. Thank you, Chief. Thank you, sir. And hello, everyone. My name is John Murad. I am the chief of police here in Burlington. And first of all, I want to acknowledge that three young men have been the victims of an unprovoked and terrible crime and that their lives have been changed forever. One in particular faces a tremendous struggle and recovery with injuries that may be life long. They've been named elsewhere, but in my personal communications with the family and in detectives communications with the victims initially that was not something that they wanted. And so our communications thus far have not named them. But in their innocence and their suffering and for that of their families and their community and our community, that can't go without mention. Next, I want to share details about this incident and the investigation as we currently know them. And all of this is preliminary information for an investigation that is ongoing. And this is only the beginning of this investigation for our detectives, for the office of the state's attorney and for our federal partners as well. We allege that Jason Jay Eaton 48 committed three acts of attempted murder. On Saturday, November 25th of 2023 at approximately 1826 hours in front of an address at 69 North Prospect Street, we received calls that people had been shot and there had been gunfire. Officers arrived and found two men shot at that location being tended to by people from the address who had brought out blankets to cover them. It was a very cold night. Both of these men were incapacitated by that by the gunfire, but they were talking and conscious. Another individual was located on a street to the east, also suffering from a gunshot wound. That individual was transported directly to the hospital by Burlington police officers. The first two young men were treated on the scene in an emergency response sensed by our great partners at the Burlington Fire Department and then were transported to the University of Vermont Medical Center. This began now an investigation. Unfortunately, we have become all too good at this in this city. We have gone from a city that routinely saw two gunfire incidents a year to a city that saw 26 last year, and I believe this was number 16 or 15 of this year. We responded. Our detectives were called out. Our identification unit or the CSI kind of unit that we have was called out. And so was the Chittenden County Gun Violence Task Force, which was a creation of Alex Schmidt at the ATF of this police department and of partners at Milton, at Colchester, at the South Burlington Police Department. All of these members, excuse me, responded to this incident, and we began the things that we do. Evidence recovery, a canvas, a partner with Fish and Wildlife brought a canine. That canine did a track, but was most instrumental in finding additional evidence at the scene that was hidden and obscured in the grass. We recovered ballistics evidence at that scene. We recovered shell casings from a 380 semi-automatic, and that was hornady ammunition with a red tip. Both of those things aren't entirely usual. They're not uncommon, but we see nine millimeters more often than we see 380s, and that was something of note. Obviously, this was only the beginning of an investigation. The young men were interviewed by detectives. They stated that the person had not made any comments to them and had merely approached them while they were walking down the street, essentially minding their own business, and they were speaking in a mixture of English and Arabic, which is their want. Two were wearing kafias, and they had no knowledge of this individual, had not encountered him before. He stepped off a porch and produced a firearm and began discharging that firearm. We recovered rounds, excuse me, ballistics consistent with four rounds, and all three of the individuals of the young men were struck. Our detectives worked that scene. We closed the scene once we had recovered all the evidence that we could, and we began the processes to follow this through in the new day. On Sunday, we began new interviews with witnesses, with the victims who were available to us. One was not owing to medical treatment. We began recanvassing. Patrol officers, which are the backbone of any police department, had done that kind of work at the initial response. Canvases knocking on doors, attempting to see whether there were cameras in the vicinity. Unfortunately, we did not have a lot of good camera coverage as we have in other incidents in our downtown. But today on Sunday, detectives began to do that again. Again, working with detectives out of that Chittenden County Gun Violence Task Force, and with new partners too. Not only are our normal long-term partners in the ATF, but new partners as well, folks with whom we have strong relationships but don't have occasion to work as often, but were brought in by the tremendous amount of concern and attention that this case garnered at the highest levels of government. I received personal calls from both senators, from our congresswoman. We knew the governor was paying attention to this case, and we knew that it was being addressed at the highest levels as well as the mayor's phone call with the president just now indicates. The FBI brought in a number of people and were able to augment our resources as we pursued this case. At approximately, just after 3.30, excuse me, at approximately 15.38 during a doorknock canvas at the location of the shooting, members of the ATF knocked on a door that had been closed the night before. Officers that the previous night had done a sweep of that entire location for both investigatory reasons and for security. So armed officers went through that apartment building, but we did not have probable cause to go into every single apartment. So if people answered the doors, we spoke to them. And if they didn't or if the apartment appeared closed, it is in fact a holiday weekend, we had no legal authority to go into units in that moment, especially since at least one witness had indicated that the shooter had in fact left the scene heading north. And so the notion of being able to just enter apartments was not available to us. We instead did this read canvas doorknock and upon knocking on one door, the ATF agents were greeted by a man who stepped out of the hall out of the door towards them with his palms up at waist height and stated something to the effect of I've been waiting for you. The ATF agents said, why is that? And the gentleman said in some instance, I would like a lawyer. He stepped into the hallway. They moved between him and the door and said, well, why is that? He stated, I would like a lawyer. Do you have any guns in there? He stated that he had one. They asked if he had any others. He stated again, I think I would like a lawyer. At that point, he was detained. He was taken to our police headquarters by a marked cruiser of the Burlington Police Department. And we swept that location only for security, which is a different level of sweep than a search, closed the locations, secured it, and then obtained a search warrant. Working closely with the state's attorney's office and with the U.S. attorney's office to make certain that that warrant was something that was going to be useful to both if it came to being something that we would use either with the state's attorney or with the U.S. attorney. We conducted investigations during that time as well, including finding out that the gentleman in custody, Mr. Eaton, had purchased a 380 recently. We discovered that there was a, that he was, we spoke to some people who knew him. The warrant was granted by a Vermont judge and it was executed at approximately 2153 hours. And at that point, during that search, we recovered a 380 firearm and Hornady red tip ammunition. ATF tests through the National Integrated Ballistic Information Network or NIBON have since connected that firearm to the casings that were recovered at the scene of the shooting. You know, cops often say that it's better to be lucky than good, but it's really even better to be both. And I believe that's what we have here. We certainly had a lot of incredibly good work, but to go to an address and find that individual in this way too is, is a little bit more than just good work. We have a lot more to do, however. Even with this arrest, we are still working. There is more investigation to be done and that includes trying to determine motive. We still do not know as much as we want to know, but I would urge the public and you in the media to avoid making conclusions based on statements from people who know even less than we currently do. We are working hard to find out this information and we are nowhere near the end of this investigation, but we are trying to determine what we have beyond the knowledge that, yes, this person, we have full probable cause to believe committed this horrible, horrible crime. Our next step will be building that case to make certain that it is as strong as possible when we, so that we can deliver it to the state's attorney. Hi, everybody. My name is Rich Price. I'm the uncle of one of the shooting victims, the Sham Awartanis, my nephew. And I'm proud to be here with Roddy Tamimi, who is the uncle of Kanan, and Roddy, will you join me? We speak only on behalf of the family because the family can't be here. I want to say that these three young men are incredible and that's not just proud uncle speaking, but it's true. They are, they have their lives in front of them. They are committed to building incredible lives. They each go to great schools. They were our house guests for Thanksgiving as they have the past few Thanksgiving's. We had just been to my eight-year-old twin's birthday party. These three college students, who, who, if you're in college, who wants to go to a eight-year-old birthday party? But these three guys did and they came. They played with my boys. We had just come home and they were walking around the block. And this is when this happened. I can tell you that I've, I've been with them almost constantly since Saturday evening. I've been listening to them talk to one another and try to process the events. And I'm blown away by their resilience, by their good humor in the face of these difficult times. And I want to extend gratitude on behalf of the families to the leadership of Chief Murad and the work of the Burlington Police Department, the work of the federal agencies that are on the ground, to Mayor Murrow and, and his team. I moved here 15 years ago and I never imagined that this sort of thing could happen. And my sister lives in the occupied West Bank and people often ask me, aren't you worried about your sister? Aren't you worried about your, your nephews and your niece? And the reality is, as difficult as their life is, they are surrounded by an incredible sense of community. And tragic irony is not even the right phrase, but to have them come stay with me for Thanksgiving and have something like this happen speaks to the level of civic, vitriol, speaks to the level of hatred that exists in some corners of this, of this country. It speaks to a sickness of gun violence that exists in this country. And I'm proud of, even though this is devastating that this happened in this community, I am really proud and grateful to the community that is here and has rallied around our family and these boys. And I want to finally say, I'll ask Roddy to say some words, but I want to finally say thank you to the staff at UVM Medical Center. The doctors and nurses and staff have been so kind and committed to the well-being of these young men. I'm grateful to them as is, as is the families. And Roddy here, uncle of Canaan, just flew in from California. And I haven't had a chance to say hello. Hello Roddy. I don't know that I have the same words that you have prepared. But thank you for that. He speaks for myself and the whole family, for all three of the families involved. It's, I'm still processing everything. I just got here from California and walked right in as you saw. We consider ourselves very lucky at this point as far as Canaan's family is concerned, not so with the, with Hisham and Tahseen. We're really praying for them and we're still in shock over this. And as he stated, Canaan grew up in the West Bank and we always thought that that could be more of a risk in terms of his safety. And sending him here would be a, you know, the right decision. We feel somehow betrayed in that decision here. And, you know, we're just trying to come to terms with everything. At this point, I don't have much else to add. I think Rich did a great job. Thank you. Good afternoon. My name is Sarah George. I am the Chittenden County State's Attorney. I want to stress, start by stressing how infuriating and atrocious this situation is. My office joins the community in the outrage over the gun violence we are experiencing in our community and our state. We join in the outrage over the hate and inhumanity shown to Hisham, Tahseen, and Canaan. Today our office filed charges against Mr. Eaton, specifically three counts of attempted murder for the senseless, unprovoked violence against these three young men. These are three life felonies. And although we do not yet have evidence to support a hate crime enhancement, I do want to be clear that there is no question this was a hateful act. We currently live in a world of divisiveness and hate rather than inclusion and love. Our media and our social media are often filled with harmful and false rhetoric that provokes hateful beliefs and pits us against one another. When this rhetoric is coupled with a nation obsessed with firearms and easy access to the same, violence is not just predictable, it is inevitable. As much as we claim otherwise, Vermont is no exception to this. We must as a community and state stand strong against hate and divisiveness. We must see the humanity in each other and unite as one community and one state that will not tolerate this hate. And we must reckon with the reality that Vermont has one of, if not the highest, rate of gun deaths in New England. In the meantime, as our community grapples with this reality, my office will continue to work closely with the Burlington Police Department and our federal partners to hold Mr. Eaton accountable and any others who commit such horrendous violence in our home. Thank you. Good afternoon. I'm Nicholas Carrist, United States Attorney for the District of Vermont. First of all, I would like to express my empathy and condolences to the three victims and to their families and the affected communities. Rich and Roddy, your perseverance and your statements today are moving and profound. So thank you. These shootings are another example of senseless gun violence that needs to stop. I truly wish the three victims a speedy recovery and a return to as normal a life as possible. Second, I would like to offer my thanks and deep appreciation to our law enforcement partners, especially the Burlington Police Department, the ATF, and the FBI. They have all brought the full extent of their resources to bear on this ongoing investigation, including, among other things, ballistic matching technology provided by ATF and victim services and computer and cell phone analysis provided by the FBI. Finally, as for the ongoing investigation, I have no comment on the evidence uncovered so far or the charges filed by the Chittenden County State's Attorney's Office or the likely path of this case as the investigation unfolds. I can say that my office and the Department of Justice as a whole, including the Civil Rights Division, will follow the facts where they lead. The priorities of the Attorney General of the United States and my office are to protect public safety, ensure civil rights are protected, and to follow the rule of law. Following the rule of law means not making prejudgment and requires following the facts where they lead, and that's what we intend to do. Thank you. Okay. I want to thank everyone who shared their remarks, especially Rich and Roddy. Say again, welcome to Burlington, Roddy. I'm sorry it is under these circumstances, and with that, I think any of us up here would be happy to answer questions. Here in Vermont, we have one traffic interaction. We believe that he arrived sometime in the summer and has not been a resident here for long. We believe he came from the Syracuse area, and we have made contact with people who knew him there. We are working on developing whether or not there are additional records in other places, but in so far as Burlington goes, no, it does not appear that he does. It also appears that he's a very recent arrival here. So the suspect, again, it was not our officers. These were agents with the ATF, really terrific men who were embedded in this community, work regularly with our officers. They encountered him from what I understand in some substance. It was a matter of knocking on the door, appearing. He appeared very nervous. He was shaking. He produced his hands empty, stated, I've been waiting for you. Why is that? I think I need a lawyer. Do you have any weapons in there? There's a shotgun inside. Anything else? I think I need a lawyer, and at that point he was detained. His affect was remarkably, there was shakiness and a sense of concern, but also something of a lack of affect. I watched his being presented with the information that he was going to be charged with attempted murder times three, and his reaction was negative. There was very little reaction, an affect less reaction to the information that he was going to be charged with attempted murder times three. We've got a lot of people interested in some questions. I'll try to moderate, and if you could raise your hand, and I'll try to recognize you. We do not have any information on a religious affiliation from Mr. Eden. All three young men are in ICU, currently in UVM Medical Center. As Roddy said, I think Kanan's injuries are though difficult. He'll make a full and speedy recovery. Tahseen is in quite a lot of pain, and my nephew, Hasham, received a spinal injury as a result of the shooting and faces a long recovery. Okay, here in the front row with the blue sweater. So I think the state's attorney's phrase is the phrase that matters. Whether or not this is a hate crime by the law, it was a hateful act. It's one that we abhor, and anybody who steps out from a porch and attacks three, random passerby, for whatever reason, is expressing a form of hate. I'm not prepared to speak about what we learned from the individuals who know Mr. Eden. That's part of the ongoing case. We are working hard on making these kinds of determinations. Among other evidence that was recovered at the apartment is computer evidence. We will be making efforts with the great assistance of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the incredible skill sets that they can bring to bear on looking into those devices and seeing whether or not we find histories. We know that in other instances and other places there have been writings, for example. There have been things that people have left social media ghosts and things online that have given us the opportunity to impute motive. We do not currently have that, and what we do have I'm not yet prepared to discuss at this stage of the investigation. Okay, Mike, go ahead. On behalf of our Federal partners, the Chief described the situation at the door. To be frank, Chief Murad knows more exactly about what happened at the door than I do. So if there's more to add beyond what the Chief said, he can do that. Otherwise, we're going to have no other comment about what happened there. Mike, I'm going to speak on behalf of the Federal partners here today. Okay, second row here. It was acquired legally through a federally licensed firearms dealer here in the state, and there were no flags on that purchase that we know of, and it was acquired only a short while ago, a few months ago, I believe. The back row. Go ahead, Sam. Thanks. As I mentioned before, here in Vermont, we have a traffic stop in our system right now. We are working to determine whether or not there are additional criminal history acts in any other locations. We believe he came from the Syracuse area in New York. That's obviously someplace that we'll be looking at. That's a great question. There was a press release done in less than an hour from the incident. We did close the location where it happened in order to facilitate investigation. We did not have any information that made it something that was an act that might have had wider public safety implications. Look, there are times where we have acts of violence in this city, and there's always the opportunity for that act of violence to either affect the people that it's targeted, affect people who are in the nearby vicinity, or to have wider implications as well. Last, as the mayor mentioned, we are currently still working on a double murder that occurred in the beginning of November. These acts, when they happen, have the potential to hurt many people. We do not lock down an entire city for something like that. There are other kinds of circumstances. In this case, we did not have that. As I said, this was a matter of trying to figure out what we had and working as quickly as we could to address that. If you want to be recognized again, I'll come in a second. Thank you. I can answer that. We are very lucky in Vermont. We don't have a lot of these incidents occur. It's an enhancement of a particular crime that is an additional element that the state has to prove beyond a reasonable doubt. Typically, the state has no requirement to prove motive. Many jurors, of course, have their opinions on that, and prosecutors might put forth a theory, but it is not an element that we have to prove. When you add a hate crime enhancement, that changes things. It means that we actually have to prove beyond a reasonable doubt an additional element of the crime. Sometimes, that's quite clear based on things that might have been said by the defendant or things that may have been immediately present in an apartment or online, but we do need direct and great evidence to support that additional element. I would also just say that in this particular case, these are life felonies. Any in Vermont, if it is being added to a felony that is five years or more, it actually just becomes an aggravating factor to be decided at sentencing. In this particular case, even with the hate crime enhancement, he would still be facing the same penalty 20 years to life, but the judge could find an aggravating factor if the state proves that element beyond a reasonable doubt. Did that address your question for Attorney George? So again, I think one of the tragedies of this event is that Burlington is a community that seeks to be extremely welcoming and inclusive to all. It is a place that wants to care for everyone and this violence violates all of that. It violates our most deeply held values and goals as a community, so we certainly will do everything we can to ensure that this is a tragic, terrible anomaly to the experience that most visitors have, that almost all visitors have to this community. Okay, I'll try to get the people I haven't spoken yet. Liam, go ahead. I think that would depend on the particular identity being discussed. In some cases, I think it would, and in others, I'm not sure it would make much difference. Again, we haven't had to test it, so it's hard to really say for sure, but I know that it is a high burden. It is something that we have wanted to charge in the past and had not had enough to do and so have used it as a sentencing enhancement only. Okay, in the second row. Sorry, can you speak up? I believe the family's fear that this was motivated by hate, that these boys were, these young men were targeted because they were Arabs, that they were wearing kafiyas. I think that is our fear. I'll speak on behalf of my family, my sister's family. We believe in the sanctity of the presumption of innocence and due process and so we'll support the authorities as they go through their investigation, but certainly seems like that's our fear. Kinan's family shares that same sentiment exactly. Absolutely hard to imagine in this time and with everything that's happening that it was just a random act doesn't feel that way, but we are absolutely willing to wait to find out and let due process take its course. Thank you. Okay, in the back, go ahead. Great. I do want to reinforce the chief answer, the response regarding neighbors. I do just want to say again, on point with your question, since we have had this significant increase in the volume of incidents like this that we're responding to, this Chinning County gun violence task force did respond very quickly and robustly throughout the day and I think that was a big part of why we got to now in terms of the response of neighbors chief. So yes, as the mayor said, there are, I think the gun violence task force is incredibly important. It's deployment is something that we have gotten pretty good at as far as calling people out, having people respond. What you're asking about, I believe, are the neighbors who assisted and I think that that is a picture of the other side and the larger side, the more important side of this community, that you had people inside who came out and immediately began to care for these injured young men and reacted in a way that was about helping and about the same kind of positive communal aspects that are the hallmark of this community and not the actions of this individual that we are going to do our best to hold accountable. Okay, we are going to take a couple more questions. Go ahead. Yeah, the state's attorney is saying it was in 2016 or so. I don't have any information about that traffic stop and whether or not there was anything about it. Had there been something about it that caused our investigators to say, hmm, I think I would know that and I don't. So that's my answer. At this point, we don't have that information. That's all going to be part of an investigation. Although, you know, as the state's attorney mentioned, motive is important to us to know it is not necessarily a component of a charge. Our object was to determine that we have the physical evidence that associates him with this act and I'm confident that that evidence is very strong. Okay, I want to thank everyone for coming today. I want to say again, thank you to the families for being here. I think a number of us will remain around if there are further questions, but I think we'll end the program there. Thank you all to the members of the press corps from really around the country around the world for being here and we'll work to get you additional answers if you need them through the day. Thank you.