Man convicted in Ore. commuter train stabbings

PORTLAND, Ore. — A man accused of fatally stabbing two people who prosecutors say tried to stop his racist tirade against two black women on a Portland, Oregon, commuter train was convicted of murder Friday after an emotional trial that featured testimony from both women and the survivor of the attack.

Jurors found Jeremy Christian, 37, guilty in the deaths of Taliesin Namkai-Meche and Ricky Best. He also was convicted of attempted murder for stabbing survivor Micah Fletcher and assault and menacing for shouting slurs and throwing a bottle at a black woman on another light rail train the day before the May 26, 2017, stabbings.

A judge last year dismissed charges of aggravated murder — which carries a potential death sentence — because of a new Oregon law that narrows the definition of aggravated murder.

The deaths came weeks after a black teen was run down and killed by a white supremacist in a Portland suburb convenience store parking lot.

In the days after the stabbings, photos and video surfaced showing that Christian had attended and spoken at a rally hosted by a farright group called Patriot Prayer. He was captured on camera making the Nazi salute while wearing an American flag around his neck and holding a baseball bat.

On Facebook, his posts slammed Portland as a place so politically correct that his right to free speech was constantly under assault.

Those beliefs were front and center in the courtroom, too, when Christian told the judge on the first day of the trial that he would wear his jail-issued blue uniform instead of a suit because to do otherwise would be like lying.

“I don’t care how much time I spend in prison,” he said. “All I care about is the public gets to see and hear what happened on the train.”

Christian’s defense attorneys Gregory Scholl and Dean Smith argued that Christian acted in self-defense and felt threatened by Namkai-Meche and Fletcher.