Man guilty of killing 2 who tried to stop his slurs on Portland commuter train
PORTLAND, Ore. – A man accused of fatally stabbing two people who prosecutors say tried to stop his racist tirade against two young black women on a commuter train was convicted of murder Friday after an emotional trial that featured testimony from both women and the sole survivor of the attack nearly three years ago.
Jurors found Jeremy Christian, 37, guilty of 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 stabbings’ racial undertones shook Portland, which prides itself on its liberal and progressive reputation but also grapples with a racist past that included limits on where black families could live and a neo-Nazi community so entrenched that the city was once nicknamed “Skinhead City.” The deaths also came weeks after a black teen was run down and killed by a white supremacist in a Portland suburb convenience store parking lot – a case that also grabbed headlines.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2020/02/21/portland-stabbings-man-who-shouted-slurs-guilty-killing-2-train/4838682002/
