One of the three students of Palestinian descent who were shot in Burlington, Vermont, last weekend described the moment he realized he was wounded in an interview with CBS News.
Kinnan Abdalhamid said that right after the shooting, he thought his friends might be dead and wanted to call 911 — then he experienced “an extreme spike of pain.”
“I put my hand where the pain was, and then I looked at it and it was soaked in blood,” Abdalhamid told CBS News’ Errol Barnett in an interview airing Thursday evening. “I was like, ‘holy s***, I was shot.'”
Abdalhamid, who is a student at Haverford College, was shot Saturday night along with his friends Tahseen Ahmad and Hisham Awartani while walking down a street. They were in Burlington visiting the home of a relative for Thanksgiving, police said, when an armed white man, without speaking, allegedly discharged at least four rounds. Two of the victims were wearing keffiyehs, the black and white checkered scarf that has become a badge of Palestinian identity and solidarity.
Authorities arrested a suspect, Jason J. Eaton, 48, on Sunday, and are investigating the shooting as a possible hate crime. Eaton pleaded not guilty and was ordered held without bail.
More of the interview with Kinnan Abdalhamid is airing Thursday night on “CBS Evening News.”
Alex Sundby and Aliza Chasan contributed to this article.
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