Stabbing hero: Focus on the women, not me
Micah Fletcher says Portland has ‘white savior complex.’
A man who was stabbed in the Oregon rail attack says in a video he’s getting too much praise.
A man PORTLAND, ORE. — who was stabbed in the neck while trying to stop a man from shouting anti-Muslim insults at two young women on a Portland, Ore., lightrail train said Wednesday that the city should focus on the girls, not him.
An emotional Micah Fletcher said in a six-minute video on his Facebook page that Portland has a “white savior complex” and residents are heaping praise on him, but the real victims are the women. He said they must be traumatized from being targets of hate and by the deaths of two other men who also tried to intervene Friday.
“These people need to be reminded that this is about them, that they are the real victims here,” he said.
Jeremy Joseph Christian is accused of stabbing to death Ricky Best, 53, and Taliesin Namkai-Meche, 23. Prosecutors say he attacked them after they confronted him for harassing two young black women, one of whom wore a Muslim head covering.
Fletcher, a 21-year-old student at Portland State University and a poet, also stood up to Christian. His wound was within millimeters of being fatal, court documents say. He has been released from the hospital and attended Christian’s first court hearing, where a scar on his neck was visible.
Christian, 35, did not enter a plea Tuesday. His court-appointed attorney, Gregory Scholls, has not returned a call.
Fletcher’s post included a link to a fundraising page for the girls.
“Suffice it to say, that I think it’s immensely, immensely and morally wrong how much money we have gotten as opposed to the money, love, kindness that has been given to that little girl,” Fletcher said, speaking of the money raised for him and the slain victims’ families.
Court documents describe a chaotic scene on the train from the moment Christian boarded.
He was drinking sangria from a large, bladder-style bag and began shouting anti-Muslim slurs once he spotted the two women, according to a probable cause affidavit signed by Multnomah County Deputy District Attorney Ryan Lufkin.
Also Wednesday, an organizer canceled an anti-Shariah law rally that had been planned for June 10 in downtown Portland. In a Facebook post, Scott Ryan Presler blamed “inflammatory comments” by Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler that he said put participants at risk of violence. He said they will march in Seattle instead.