Stabbings suspect ‘bragged in patrol car’
PORTLAND: A man charged with fatally stabbing two men and injuring a third who tried to shield young women from an anti-Muslim tirade appeared to brag about the attacks as he sat in the back of a police patrol car, saying “that’s what liberalism gets you”, according to court documents.
The probable cause affidavit filed on Tuesday offers the most complete official account to date of the events that unfolded on Friday on a light-rail car packed with commuters eager to get home for the Memorial Day weekend.
Jeremy Joseph Christian, the man arrested in the stabbings, shouted “You call it terrorism! I call it patriotism!” and “Death to the enemies of America!” as he made his first appearance in the case on Tuesday. Mr Christian, 35, did not enter a plea and has another court date on June 7.
Defence attorney Gregory Scholls did not return a call for comment after the hearing.
A probable cause affidavit describes a chaotic scene on the train from the moment Mr Christian boarded. He was drinking sangria from a large, bladder-style bag and began shouting anti-Muslim slurs once he spotted the two young women. Both are black and one was wearing a Muslim head covering, according to the affidavit signed by Multnomah County Deputy District Attorney Ryan Lufkin.
One passenger tried to intervene and was not hurt. The women moved away from the defendant.
Surveillance video then shows Mr Christian turn his attention to a man, Taliesin Namkai-Meche, who was seated. It wasn’t immediately clear if Namkai-Meche, 23, said something to Mr Christian to draw his attention, but he stood up as Mr Christian began shouting at him. A third passenger, Micah Fletcher, stood up as well and pushed Mr Christian hard enough to make him stumble, the affidavit said.
Mr Christian pulled a folded knife from his pocket and concealed it in his hand. As a shoving match ensued, the documents say Mr Christian stabbed first Mr Fletcher, then Namkai-Meche. A fourth passenger, Ricky Best, tried to come to their aid and was immediately stabbed as well.
Best, 53, died on the train and NamkaiMeche died at the hospital a short time later. Mr Fletcher survived and was released from the hospital on Monday. He attended Mr Christian’s court hearing but did not speak with reporters.
Autopsies showed both victims died from stab wounds to their necks and Best also had a fractured vertebra. The stab wound to Mr Fletcher’s neck “missed being a fatal injury by millimetres”, court papers said, quoting his doctors.
In the patrol car, Mr Christian can be heard on surveillance video saying he stabbed three people in the neck and that he can “die a happy man”, according to court papers.
The Pacific Northwest has been a leader on many socially liberal fronts including raising the minimum wage and legalising recreational marijuana but the region has a long and violent history of white supremacist and other racist activities.
Many of the early settlers to Oregon were from Southern states and brought with them negative attitudes about blacks, said Karen Gibson, a professor of urban studies at Portland State University. Currently, more than 70% of Portland is non-Hispanic white and only about 6% of the city’s population is black, according to the most recent US Census data. “The idea that Portland is so liberal supersedes this dark, hidden secret about racism,” Ms Gibson said.
As a memorial to Friday’s stabbing victims grew, one large chalk message stood out, streaked by rain under a grey sky: “Remember Mulugeta Seraw”, an Ethopian student who was killed in Portland in 1988 by white supremacists.
Friday’s attack happened on the first day of Ramadan and is the latest in a series of apparent hate crimes in the region.
Mayor Ted Wheeler asked the organisers of rallies set for June 4 and June 10 to cancel because of fears it could further enflame tensions.
Rally organiser Joey Gibson condemned Mr Christian in a phone interview but rejected the mayor’s call to cancel his event. He acknowledged Mr Christian had shown up at a Patriot Prayer rally on April 29 with a baseball bat and had made the Nazi salute. But Mr Gibson said he hurled insults at rally organisers as well as counter-protesters.
“He came yelling at everyone, cussing at everyone. He threatened me and tons of people,” Mr Gibson said.
Several counter-protests are planned.