After three Palestinian university students were shot on Saturday in Burlington, Vermont, the police chief of the city has urged the public not to rush to declare it a "hate-motivated crime".

Burlington Police Chief Jon Murad stated Monday that it was still uncertain if the shooting was hate-motivated, urging the media to "avoid making conclusions," as the police are "working hard" to find the motive behind the shooting.

During a press conference, he explained that law enforcement still does not hold the information needed.

Police arrested Jason J. Eaton, 48, on Sunday and charged him with three counts of attempted second-degree murder. He has pleaded not guilty and will serve a life sentence if convicted.

Prosecutor State Attorney Sarah George told reporters Monday that although there is no "evidence" supporting a hate crime, she still expressed it was a "hateful act".

According to the Institute for Middle East Understanding, the shooting victims are Hisham Awartani, a student at Brown University in Rhode Island; Kinnan Abdalhamid, a student at Haverford College in Pennsylvania; and Tahseen Ali Ahmad, a student at Trinity College in Connecticut.

All of them are currently in intensive care as confirmed by Rich Price, an uncle of one of the victims.

The victims' families and several civil rights organizations had urged investigators to thoroughly investigate whether the shooting was motivated by hatred, as the attack occurred amid a reported rise in anti-Muslim and anti-Arab bias incidents in the United States since the war on Gaza began. 

A lawyer representing the victims' families Abed Ayoub believes the young men were targeted due to wearing koufiyyehs, traditional Palestinian scarves.

A targeted crime

Ayoub told CNN that “the suspect walked up to them and shot them. They weren’t robbed, they weren’t mugged,” calling it a "targeted crime".

Before police announced the arrest of a suspect, Burlington Mayor Miro Weinberger expressed that the shooting was "chilling" and the district of Vermont attorney's office and other authorities are looking into whether the shooting was a hate crime.

Ramallah Friends School, a Quaker-run private nonprofit school in Ramallah, where the victims attended before coming to the US,  released a statement in which its head called the shooting "yet another example of the diminished regard for the lives, suffering, and inherent humanity of Palestinians."

The victims' relatives and human rights organizations have underlined that the shooting happened amid near-constant fears among some Muslim and Arab populations in the US, who have expressed worry for their safety since the Middle East conflict began.

This is not the first hate crime to target Palestinians in the US, as last month, a Palestinian child was killed and his mother was badly injured after being stabbed over a dozen times in Plainfield Township, Chicago.