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Jeremy Christian, the Portland man accused of murdering two people on a rush-hour MAX train in 2017, unleashed a courtroom rant today as a woman testified about a previous transit encounter with him.
"I'm the victim," he said, interrupting the testimony of Demetria Hester, a black woman who had a confrontation with Christian the night before the stabbing. (He allegedly threw a Gatorade bottle at her, and she allegedly responded by spraying mace on him.)
"You're on video macing me," Christian continued, pointing at Hester and growing increasingly agitated. "Liar. Liar. Liar! You're not the only black person on MAX, liar. Manufacturing hate crimes. Liar!"
Christian, a political extremist who has expressed hatred of women, minorities and liberals, is facing trial for the double murder of Ricky Best and Taliesin Namkai-Meche in May 2017. The two men interrupted his rant directed at two black teenage girls.
Hester encountered Christian on a MAX Yellow Line train the night before the stabbings. She told press in 2017 that Christian cursed at her and ranted: "You do not have the right to even be on this train. … You don't have a right to speak. You're black. You don't have a right to be here. All you Muslims, blacks, Jews, I will kill all of you."
He later thew a Gatorade bottle at her on a station platform, hitting her in the eye. She maced him and kicked him in the groin.
Today, Hester was testifying about the encounter when Christian began grumbling. Multnomah County Circuit Judge Cheryl Albrecht told him to be quiet, and he launched into his rant.
As deputies removed him from the courtroom, he kept talking. "Manufacturing hate crimes in 2017," he said. "Keep Portland weird."
