Update: One of the victim’s names, Taliesin Myrddin Namkai Meche, and photo tweeted (see 11:10 AM update below). GoFundMe for the victims here.
First reported in this diary by se portland:
A man riding the MAX in Northeast Portland fatally stabbed two passengers who tried to stop him from hurling racial and anti-Muslim insults at women on the train, witnesses tell WW's news partner KATU-TV...
Details of the triple stabbing, which killed two men, are still emerging. But eyewitness reports to KATU and The Oregonian indicate it was an anti-immigrant hate crime.
www.wweek.com/...
Witnesses told KATU’s Joe Douglass the stabbing suspect was hurling racial insults at two women with dark skin, one of whom was wearing a headdress. Two men who came to the woman’s defense had their throats slashed by the suspect, witnesses said.
Another witness says… the suspect was asking them questions when he got belligerent. When another bystander tried to calm him down, the man took out a knife and began stabbing people.
“He said, ‘Get off the bus, and get out of the country because you don’t pay taxes here,’ [he said he] doesn’t like Muslims, they’re criminals,”
Welcome to the Trump’s America. Where asylum seekers are turned away and immigrants must live in fear for their lives from hate-inspired lunatics while at the same time living in fear of a government that will take them from their children, their spouses and their life as they know it if they are arrested.
Update thought: And what is just as terrifying as the actuality of this is the realization that, going forward, people will be much more reluctant to intervene in any kind of verbal assault upon anyone, especially an immigrant or any non white-skinned person.
Simpson said that screed was part of a larger, unfocused rant and erratic behavior.
"It's horrific," Simpson said. "There's no other way to describe it."
UPDATE, 8:45 pm: The Portland Police Bureau has issued an official statement on the double slaying. It says the man who committed the attacks was "yelling various remarks that would best be characterized as hate speech toward a variety of ethnicities and religions."
It also says police are still looking for the two young women, who may have been targets of the verbal abuse...
The The Council on American-Islamic Relations, based in Washington, D.C., tonight decried the killings and asked President Donald Trump "to speak out personally against rising bigotry and acts of racial violence in America targeting Muslims and other minority groups."
Update:
Update 10:40 PM:
Police have detained the suspect, and note there is "there is no further public risk." Simpson told the Oregonian that police believe the event to be "an isolated incident."
FBI Response to Homicide Investigation - 05/26/17
The FBI is aware of the attacks tonight, and we are offering any resource that may assist Portland Police in their investigation. We will certainly be looking at the facts and evidence as the investigation unfolds to determine whether there is any potential federal violation.
At the core of the FBI's mission is the belief that every person has the right to live, work and worship in this country without fear. Hate and bigotry have no place in our community, and we will not allow violence in the name of hate to go unanswered.
Update:
Gather with Portland Indivisible D-3 for a peaceful candlelight vigil to honor the upstanders who were attacked and murdered on a MAX train Friday for trying to intervene as a man yelled racial slurs at two young women, one who was wearing a hijab.
"We ask that our community come together in love and solidarity in the face of this horror to honor the memory of the victims and in support of those in our city and nation who feel terrorized and targeted," said Laurel Carrasco with Portland Indivisible D-3.
Please help us spread the word and bring your own candle to the event.
Update 8:30 AM Saturday (picture of assailant in article):
Jeremy Joseph Christian, 35, who was arrested yesterday on suspicion of killing two men who tried to protect two dark-skinned women wearing hijabs from his racist abuse, is also a notorious racist from North Portland who networked with other racists when he wasn't doing time (and, presumably, when he was)…
On his Facebook page, amid rants against organized religion and memes poking fun at Jews sentenced to die in the Nazi concentration camps, were other posts revealing his crazed "Misanthropic Nihilist" philosophy.
Update 8:40 AM from the Portland Mercury:
Update: Christian has a criminal record that includes a host of felonies going back to 2002, when he was convicted of first-degree robbery and second-degree kidnapping. He also has a conviction for carrying/using a dangerous weapon from 2002.
Update 8:45 AM from the Washington Post:
Christian is being held without bail on two counts of aggravated murder, one count of attempted murder, two counts of intimidation in the second degree and one count of possession of a restricted weapon as a felon.
The deceased victims’ identities have not yet been released, pending an autopsy by the Oregon State Medical Examiner in Portland late Saturday morning, police said.
Major Update 9:15 AM from the The Oregonian:
"He was saying that Muslims should die," said Dyjuana Hudson, a mother of one of the girls. "That they've been killing Christians for years." …
Destinee Hudson, 16, is black, and her friend, 17, who was wearing a hijab, is Muslim, the mother said…
Destinee and her friend sprinted out of the train as soon as the doors opened at the Hollywood transit station at Northeast 42nd Avenue…
"The screaming – I've never heard that much terror in people's voices before," said Blackwood, 27, of Milwaukie.
[Upon catching up with the suspect] ...the man told police to shoot him.
He had a knife in his hand and said he was going to come at an officer, prompting the officer to get behind a car door… “The suspect was asking for it… He was literally asking them to shoot him."
The man repeated himself, screaming all sorts of things at officers...
Hudson said she's beyond grateful for the sacrifices the three men who intervened on the train made for the girls.
Update 11:10 AM:
Update 11:40 AM from Williamette Week:
Witness Video Shows Double Murderer's Standoff With Portland Police
More Samaritans chased the killer from the train and flagged him down for police, who surrounded him, guns drawn