Brown University students gather for protest after junior hurt in possible hate crime shooting

PROVIDENCE, R.I. (WLNE) — Brown University students gathered on the Main Green for a protest on Tuesday morning.

The demonstration came one day after the school held a vigil in honor of 20-year-old Hisham Awartani, a junior at Brown who was shot alongside two friends in Vermont over the weekend.

ABC 6 News and other news outlets have not been allowed on campus, and have been directed to adjacent streets.

Hisham and his friends, Kinnan Abdalhamid and Tahseen Ali Ahmad, were shot while on a walk in Burlington, Vermont on Saturday. They are all college students of Palestinian descent, and had gotten together for Thanksgiving.

Jason Eaton is accused of shooting three 20-year-old college students of Palestinian descent on Saturday. The attack is being investigated as a possible hate crime. (Provided photo)

The shooting is being investigated as a possible hate crime.

The suspect, 48-year-old Jason Eaton, pleaded not guilty to three counts of attempted murder on Monday.

Hisham’s mother, Elizabeth Price, told ABC 6 News her son has a spinal injury.

“I’m shaken. I’m hollow inside — I’m aching to be with my son. 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 into him — the extent, the enormity of the challenge that faces him,” Price said.

Many students chanted for Brown to divest from companies that have been profiting off the conflict between Israel and Hamas.