Video After The Jump
(WARNING: Extremely graphic language)
Jeremy Christian’s sentencing hearing started off with an outburst Tuesday, when moments into the hearing Christian told one of his surviving victims that he regretted not killing her. Deputies swiftly escorted him out of the courtroom.
Christian lost his composure as one of those victims, Demetria Hester, who suffered a serious eye injury after Christian struck her in the face with a half-filled Gatorade bottle -- described him as a white supremacist and a plague on society.
“You are a waste of breath,” said victim Demetria Hester. “And when you die and go to hell, I hope you rot.”
Christian responded: “See you there.” He shouted derogatory names at Hester, called her a liar and exclaimed, “I should have killed you!” At one point, inexplicably, Christian also yelled “George Floyd! George Floyd!”
"His behavior today was especially egregious so he has forfeited his right to be here during sentencing," said Multnomah County Circuit Court Judge Cheryl Albrecht.
In February, a 12-person jury unanimously found Christian guilty of the murders of Taliesin Namkai-Meche, 23, and Ricky Best, 53. and the attempted first-degree murder of Micah Fletcher for stabbing all three men in the neck on a Green Line train as it pulled into Northeast Portland’s Hollywood Transit Center on May 26, 2017.
According to evidence presented at trial, Namkai-Meche had approached Christian with his phone, apparently in an attempt to record Christian’s racist tirade. After Christian swatted Namkai-Meche’s phone onto the train’s floor and shoved Fletcher and Namkai-Meche, Fletcher repeatedly shoved Christian and told him to get off the train. That’s when Christian stabbed both of them and Best, who was standing nearby.
Among other crimes, jurors also found Christian guilty of hate crimes for threatening to harm two teenage girls, who were 16 and 17 at the time and were riding the train to Clackamas Town Center. One of them is African American and the other is an immigrant from Somalia, who was wearing a hijab. Witnesses said Christian unleashed a vile torrent about Muslims, Christians and Jews dying, spoke of beheadings and shouted, “Go home, we need American here!”
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