PORTLAND STABBING WHITE SUPREMACIST APPEARS IN COURT

PORTLAND STABBING WHITE SUPREMACIST APPEARS IN COURT



A white supremacist who is accused of murdering two Portland train passengers as they tried to protect a Muslim teenage girl, yelled 'death to the enemies of America' as he made his first court appearance.

Jeremy Joseph Christian appeared to show no remorse, shouting, 'You call it terrorism, I call it patriotism', when he appeared at the Multnomah County courtroom, in Oregon, on Tuesday.

His only surviving stabbing victim appeared in court, revealing his giant scar from the attack, to watch Christian's arraignment.

Meanwhile, the 35-year-old suspect, who wore a blue jail jumpsuit, stood with an officer either side as he yelled out bizarre slogans such as 'death to the enemies of America, leave this country if you hate our freedom.'

'Free speech or die Portland, you got no safe space. This is America, get out if you don't like free speech,' he shouted as he was arraigned on multiple murder charges, CNN reports.

They include two counts of aggravated murder, attempted murder, two counts of second-degree intimidation and being a felon in possession of a restricted weapon.



The aggravated murder charges alone carry a maximum penalty of death although the state has not carried out an execution in 20 years.

Christian is due back in court on June 7.



He is accused of killing Rick Best, a Portland employee and retired Army platoon sergeant who served for 23 years, and 23-year-old Taliesin Myrddin Namkai-Meche, after they stepped in to defend a 16-year-old and her Muslim friend a MAX train last Friday.

Micah David-Cole Fletcher, 21, who also intervened in Christian's racist tirade against the teens, was stabbed in the neck and required surgery to remove bone fragments from his throat, but he survived and is recovering in hospital.

The attack on the train was reportedly sparked by Christian going on a racist tirade against two teenage girls - one of whom was wearing a hijab.

He allegedly shouted at them to 'go back to Saudi Arabia', to 'get out of his country', and to 'kill themselves'.

Destinee Mangum, one of the two girls, told KPTV she believes her 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,' Mangum told KPTV. 'He was just telling us that we basically weren't anything and that we should just kill ourselves.'

She says a stranger intervened on their behalf, and they quickly backed away to the end of the train.

'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,' she told KPTV. 'It was just blood everywhere and we just started running for our lives.'



Video has since emerged of Christian shouting 'F*** you, f***ing kill me,' at officers who surrounded him after the shooting.

The alleged killer appeared to hold a knife in one hand and poured liquid on himself from what looked like a beer can he was holding in his left hand in an attempt to wash the blood off his clothing.

'Shoot me! Go ahead and shoot me in the back, you piece of s***.'

Christian then turned so he was facing the officers again and took a drink from the can he had in his left hand.

'If you want to get my knife you have to kill me, f***ers,' he said, before again turning away from the officers.

Blackwood told the Williamette Week what he saw when he got off the train after hearing people crying out in pain and terror from ahead of him on the train.

'I heard a woman scream, 'He's stabbing people.' I jumped up and said 'Then f***ing stop him.''

He added that he saw two men on the ground: 'Holding their necks, bleeding out of their necks, like thick black blood… I could smell the blood, there was so much of it.'

Blackwood then explained to the newspaper how he and two other men from the train chased after Christian, until they caught up to him at a crossing on 47th Street.



'He stopped there, turned around and pulled his knife out,' the 27-year-old cook recalled.

'He said, 'You want some?' I said, 'No man.' Luckily he believed me.

'When we crossed over 47th, a police officer was driving by. We said, 'Yo this guy is the guy!' He immediately jumped out with his AR-15.'

The dramatic footage emerged after a woman on the train revealed the final words of one of Christian's alleged victims - 23-year-old Taliesin Myrddin Namkai-Meche.

Rachel Macy was on the MAX train when the alleged attack took place, and she explained why she could not leave Namkai-Meche's side as he lay on the ground with his throat cut.

'I just didn't want him to be alone,' Macy told KOIN. 'I took my shirt off