'A living nightmare': Palestinian-American student injured in Vermont shooting breaks silence
Kinnan Abdalhamid, a Palestinian-American student who was injured in a shooting in Burlington, Vermont, on Saturday spoke out for the first time since the incident in an interview that aired on ABC's "The View" on Thursday.
Abdalhamid, a pre-med student at Haverford College in Haverford, Pennsylvania, who was shot along with two other college students of Palestinian decent -- Brown University student Hisham Awartani and Trinity College student Tahseen Ali Ahmed -- was released from the hospital on Tuesday.
"It really felt like I was in a living nightmare," Abdalhamid told the co-hosts of "The View" on Thursday.
According to Abdalhamid, the three childhood friends -- all alumni of the Ramallah Friends School in the West Bank -- were visiting Burlington for the Thanksgiving holiday and staying at Awartani's grandmother's home.
He said that on the night of the shooting, the three had been going on a walk after returning home from a night of bowling. At the time, they were speaking a mix of English and Arabic he said and Awartani and Ahmed were wearing keffiyehs around their necks -- black and white traditional Palestinian headdresses that are commonly worn as scarves.
"We see this man standing on the porch of his house, kind of looking away from us. As soon as he turns around and sees us ... He didn't hesitate without a word to just run down the stairs of the porch, pull out a pistol and start shooting," Abdalhamid said.
"It was almost surreal how quickly he did it. I still kind of remember it and even at the moment it was kind of moving in a nightmare," he added.
The suspect, 48-year-old Jason James Eaton of Burlington, was arrested Sunday night and charged in the shooting of the students outside a residence in Burlington near the University of Vermont. His attorney entered a not guilty plea to three counts of attempted murder on his behalf and a judge ordered Eaton to be held without bail.
Abdalhamid, who said he is a trained EMT, recounted how he ran away from the scene to call for help after the shooting, and hid in the backyard of a nearby home.
“[I was] fully convinced that both my friends were dead because they were shot point blank and he seemed like he was aiming to kill so I thought that he might have shot them again,” he said.
A motive for the shooting remains under investigation, but Burlington Police Chief Jon Murad issued a statement Sunday, saying, "In this charged moment, no one can look at this incident and not suspect that it may have been a hate-motivated crime."
The shooting took place amid a rise in bias incidents against Arabs, Muslims and Jews in the U.S. surrounding the war between Israel and Hamas.
Abdalhamid's mother, Tamara Tamimi, who also appeared on "The View," previously told ABC News that she is "grateful" that her son only suffered a "superficial" wound but that his emotional journey to heal is only beginning.
"And at this time, quite honestly I feel like no Palestinian is safe anywhere. So it's really frightening. It's really traumatizing," Tamimi said, calling out the “dehumanizing” rhetoric about Palestinians in the U.S.
Awartani and Ahmed were more seriously injured, and are still being treated at the UVM Medical Facility where they were reported to be in stable condition.
Awartani's mother, Elizabeth Price, told ABC News on Monday that her son has a bullet lodged in his spine that doctors decided not to remove and they are unsure if he will be able to walk again.
“I'm shaking. I'm hollow inside. I'm aching to be with my son,” Price said. “He's lying immobilized in a bed, but he had very high spirits in the beginning. And I think now it's beginning to sink in to him the extent of -- the enormity of the challenge that faces him.”
Tamami, Price and her husband arrived in the U.S. on Wednesday. She said that Ahmed's parents are planning on visiting their son as well, but the process has taken longer because they are not U.S. citizens.
According to Price, Ahmed was shot in the chest and is in "severe pain."
Abdalhamid said he is "grateful" that the suspect has been arrested and for the widespread support they have gotten since the shooting.
"I'm feeling a lot better since he was caught. I don't think me or my friends would have left the hospital if that, if he wasn't," he said. "I am also overwhelmed with the support. I didn't expect the story about a Palestinian being shot to go this far and wide."
