Trump: Slayings of men defending Muslim, black teens ‘unacceptable’
WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump condemned as ‘unacceptable’ the stabbing deaths of two men who defended two young women being targeted by a suspected white supremacist on a train in Oregon.
“The violent attacks in Portland on Friday are unacceptable. The victims were standing up to hate and intolerance. Our prayers are w/ them,” Trump said on Twitter.
Rick John Best, 53, an army veteran, and Taliesin Myrddin Namkai-Meche, 23, a recent college graduate, died after having their throats cut on the crowded train.
They had come to the defence of two teenage girls, one of them a Muslim wearing a headscarf and the other an African-American.
A third man, 21-year- old Micah David-Cole Fletcher, was wounded and hospitalised.
The attacker, identified as 35-year- old Jeremy Joseph Christian, had been hurling abuse at the teenagers when the men intervened.
The Portland Mercury newspaper said Christian — who has been charged on two counts of murder and one count of attempted murder — was a known white supremacist and right-wing extremist.
Trump’s message, sent just before he attended a Memorial Day ceremony at the Arlington military cemetery near Washington, came amid rising pressure on the president to condemn the slayings of the two men, dubbed ‘heroes’ by local media and law enforcement in Portland.
Dan Rather, the former TV news anchor, said on Facebook that the men “were brave Americans who died at the hands of someone who, when all the facts are collected, we may have every right to call a terrorist.” — AFP