Skip to main content
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.
The suspect is currently in Portland police custody. The stabbing occurred at about 4:30 this afternoon as the light-rail train pulled into the Hollywood Transit Center.
UPDATE: The alleged killer is a Portland white supremacist who pledged to eradicate Jews and Muslims.
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.
WW will update this post when police release further information.
UPDATE, 8:20 pm: At a press conference, Portland Police Bureau spokesman Sgt. Pete Simpson confirmed eyewitness reports that the man was verbally abusing two women, one in a hijab.
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 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."
The attack falls on the eve of Ramadan, the month of fasting that is among the most sacred holidays for Muslims.