A man fatally stabbed two passengers aboard a Portland, Oregon commuter train after they tried to stop him from harassing two young women who appeared to be Muslim, police said on Saturday.
Police identified the assailant, who was arrested soon after the Friday afternoon attack, as Jeremy Joseph Christian of Portland, a 35-year-old convicted felon.
A senior researcher with the Southern Poverty Law Center, in a blog post, said Christian’s Facebook page showed he held “some racist and other extremist beliefs.”
The attack unfolded hours before the start of Ramadan, Islam’s holy month, when most of the world’s 1.6 billion Muslims observe a daily religious fast.
Christian started shouting ethnic and religious slurs, apparently at the two young women, one of whom wore a Muslim head-covering, the Portland Police Department said in a statement. (Reuters)
