Jeremy Joseph Christian, 35, made his first court appearance on charges of killing two men on a Portland, Oregon, train. The courtroom was packed as Christian entered and the racist killer shouted, “Free speech or die Portland, you got no safe space. This is America, get out if you don’t like free speech!”
Christian showed no remorse for stabbing and killing retired Army sergeant Rick Best and Taliesin Myrddin Namkai-Meche, when they stepped in to protect a 16-year-old girl and her friend last Friday. Micah Fletcher, another man who intervened, was also stabbed but survived his injury and was present in court with a large scar visible on his neck. The White supremacist continued a vile rant of hate as charges of two counts of aggravated murder, attempted murder, two counts of second-degree intimidation and a felon in possession of a weapon by the court clerk. The racist killer yelled, “You call it terrorism, I call it patriotism” and “death to the enemies of America, leave this country if you hate our freedom.” Familiar refrains from White supremacists and some die-hard Trump supporters. It was a peek into the mindset of hate that has become an all too frequent item feeding the news cycle during the presidency of Donald Trump.
Destinee Mangum, one of the teen girls, Christian was intimidating, told the media she believes she and her friend would be dead if not for the Fletcher, Best, and Namkai-Meche. “He told us to go back to Saudi Arabia and he told us we shouldn’t be here, to get out of his country. … He was just telling us that we basically weren’t anything and that we should just kill ourselves,” Mangum said.
She further stated, “‘Me and my friend were going to get off the MAX and then we turned around while they were fighting and he just started stabbing people. … It was just blood everywhere and we just started running for our lives.”
Christian is due back in court on June 7, 2017.
