The Two Teenage Girls Targeted on MAX Train Say They “Don’t Feel Safe” in Portland

The two black teenagers initially targeted in a racial attack on a MAX train in May 2017, Destinee Mangum and Walia Mohamed, spoke in a joint interview for the first time since the attack in a book excerpt published on Literary Hub.

Their interview is featured in a book called American Hate: Survivors Speak Out by Arjun Singh Sethi.

In a detailed retelling of the moments before and after Jeremy Christian pulled out a knife and stabbed three men on a MAX train, the two girls recall enduring the insults for several minutes before Micah Fletcher, Ricky John Best and Taliesin Myrddin Namkai-Meche intervened. Best and Namkai-Meche were killed.

The two girls say they feel unsafe in Portland. Mangum, who has been more public, says she's received death threats and more racial abuse.

Mohamed also says her life hasn't been the same since that day.

"I hid because I didn't want the cameras on me," she tells Sethi. "I had already been through so much. I just wanted my old life back. I also liked Portland growing up, but I don't feel comfortable here anymore. Everywhere I go, I fear for my safety. I'm a Somali immigrant and I decided to take off my hijab a few months ago because I don't feel safe. I feel like I'm going to get attacked again."

The two girls recount being accosted with racial slurs and hate speech when Christian stepped on the train at the Lloyd Center stop.

"You're nothing," Mangum remembers him yelling. "Kill yourself. Get out of this country. Burn."

"Muslims should die," Mohamed recalled him snapping. "Go back to Saudi Arabia."

As Christian ranted, the two girls remember a second man standing behind him, encouraging him.

"I also remember that when Christian was yelling, there was another white guy vouching for him," Mangum says. "He was standing right behind him and saying yes to everything Christian was saying." Mohamed remembers the other man nodding along behind Christian.

Then, Fletcher, Best and Namkai-Meche stepped in. Christian pulled out a knife.

The girls ran as soon as the train doors opened.