Muslims thankful for support after rant, deadly attack
PORTLAND, ORE. — Muslims in Portland, Oregon, thanked the community for its suppor t and s a i d t hey were raising money for the families of two men who were killed when they came to the defense of two young women — one wearing a hijab — who were targeted by an anti-Muslim rant.
“I am very thankful as a Muslim, I am very thankful as a Portlander ... that we stand together here as one,” Muhammad A. Najieb, an imam at the Muslim Community Center, said Saturday.
A f u n d r a i s i n g p a g e launched by his group for the families of the dead men, a surviving victim and the two young women had raised
50,000 in its fifirst hours, Najieb said.
Police said they’ll examine what appears to be the extremist ideology of suspect Jeremy Joseph Christian, 35, who is accused of killing the two men Friday. Christian’s social media postings indicate an affiffinity for Nazis and political violence.
The attack occurred on a light- rail train on the fifirst day of Ramadan, the holiest time of the year for Muslims.
Christian was being held on suspicion of aggravated murder, attempted murder, intimidation and being a felon in possession of a weapon. He was arrested a short time after the attack when he was confronted by other men.
Christian will make his fifirst court appearance in the case Tuesday, and it wasn’t clear if he had an attorney. No one answered the phone at his Portland home.
Police identifified the men killed as Ricky John Best, 53, of Happy Valley, Oregon, and Taliesin Myrddin Namkai Meche, 23, of Portland. Mayor Ted Wheeler said Best was an Army veteran and a city employee. Meche earned a bachelor’s degree in economics in 2016 from Reed College in Portland and landed a job with the Cadmus Group, a consulting fifirm in the area.
Police say Micah DavidCole Fletcher, 21, of Portland was also stabbed and is in serious condition at a Portland hospital. Police say his injuries are not believed to be life-threatening.
Fletcher is a student at Portland State University. I n 2 01 3, F l e t c h e r won a 2013 poetry competition, the Verselandia poetry slam, with a poem condemning prejudices faced by Muslims, according to The Oregonian/OregonLive.
Police said the assailant on the train was ranting on many topics, using hate speech or biased language,” police Sgt. Pete Simpson said.
The Portland Mercury, one of the city’s alternative weeklies, posted an article on its website saying Christian showed up at a free speech march in late April with a baseball bat to confront protesters and the bat was confifiscated by police.
The article included video clips of a man wearing a metal chain around his neck and draped in an American flflag shouting “I’m a nihilist! This is my safe place!” as protesters crowd around him.
Simpson confirmed the man in the videos was Christian.
On what appears to be Christian’s Facebook page, he showed sympathy for Nazis and Timothy McVeigh, who bombed a federal building in Oklahoma City in 1995.