“You’re about to get it,” Jeremy Christian told a woman who had just confronted him about his diatribe aboard a MAX train on the day before a similar rant by Christian ended with two men fatally stabbed and a third gravely injured on another crowded train.
That’s how Demetria Hester described her violent encounter with Christian from the witness stand Friday as he watched her from his seat at the defense table. It was the fourth day of testimony in Christian’s trial for murder and attempted murder.
Before Hester testified, Multnomah County Circuit Judge Cheryl Albrecht cautioned Christian to remain quiet or he would be removed. The judge noted that he had spoken out the previous day. In April, the judge had ordered him out of the courtroom after he stood up, yelled “Liar!” and pointed his finger at Hester.
This time, Christian made no outbursts as Hester, who is African American, said that she had noticed him on the train late at night on May 25, 2017, when he started yelling “that he was a Nazi, that he hated all Muslims, blacks, Jews."
She has said she was headed home from her sous chef job at Po’shines Café De La Soul when she boarded the MAX Yellow Line on North Denver Avenue. Three stops later, Christian stepped onto the train.
Christian yelled “(we)shouldn’t be in his country. We’re breathing his air. We’re riding his train. He pays taxes. Free speech,” she testified. “I’m just in a state of disbelief that I’m hearing what I’m hearing.”
Hester said she decided to speak up: “(I’m) telling him to shut up. No one wants to be threatened because of their race, color, creed or religion.” She said Christian kept swigging alcohol from a plastic, 32-ounce Gatorade bottle.
Prosecutor Jeff Howes asked Hester how Christian responded. She said Christian told her: “(Expletive) you (expletive). I can say what I want to say. This is free speech. This is my train. If you don’t like it, get off.”
Then, she said, Christian told her as they stepped off the train: “(Expletive), you’re about to get it.” She said when Christian put down his bag, Hester sprayed him with Mace. He responded by pelting her in her right eye with his Gatorade bottle and saying the next time he saw her he was going to kill her, Hester recounted.
TriMet surveillance video shows Christian throwing the bottle at Hester. Hester said the wine inside splashed all over her and her eye bled and started to swell. She said the bottle hit her “like a baseball, a bullet.” Photos taken by police show her swollen, black eye.
Demetria Hester said a Portland police officer took this photo of her shortly after Christian attacked her on May 25, 2017. The photo was shown to jurors on Friday, Jan. 31, 2020. Beth Nakamura, The Oregonian/OregonLive/Pool
Less than 18 hours later, Christian fatally stabbed Ricky Best, 53, and Taliesin Namkai-Meche, 23, and seriously injured Micah Fletcher, then 21, on May 26, 2017, on a Green Line train as it pulled into the Hollywood Transit Center in Northeast Portland. The killing followed what prosecutors and witnesses said was a racist and xenophobic tirade that appeared to be aimed at two teenage girls, one wearing a hijab.
Christian is charged with two counts of first-degree murder and one count of first-degree attempted murder in the stabbings. He also is charged with second-degree intimidation for allegedly targeting the two teens and Hester. Intimidation is a hate crime in Oregon.
Hester said her eye was swollen, black and blue and painful for a month after Christian’s attack. More than 2 1/2 years later, her eye is still sensitive to light and she sees “squiggly lines," she said.
Two TriMet supervisors were the first to arrive to the MAX platform in the Rose Quarter after the train with Hester and Christian pulled into the area. Supervisor Andrew Garcia said he heard Christian saying racist things and saw Christian throw the bottle at Hester.
Garcia also backed up Hester’s testimony by saying he, too, heard Christian say he was going to kill Hester. Defense attorneys tried to discredit those accounts by pointing to a police report that stated Garcia and a second TriMet supervisor told an officer that they heard Christian say he would “hit” Hester.
But the second TriMet supervisor, Bradley Hanson, told jurors that Christian indicated to him his willingness to use a lethal weapon. Hanson said he had tried to talk to Christian that night, but Christian threatened him.
“I said, ‘Hey, were you involved in that incident on that train?’” Hanson recalled. “He stood up and looked at me and said, ‘You get away from me or I’ll stab you.’”
Hanson walked away.
“He’s a big guy," Hanson said. "And I could tell he was pretty wound up. A lot younger than me. So I backed off.”
Christian wasn’t arrested at the time, even though one of the TriMet supervisors and Hester said they identified Christian as the attacker and the supervisor told the police officer who responded to detain him. Hester said the officer treated her poorly.
“He asked for my ID and treated me like I was the assailant,” she said. Hester said she was sent home on a 40-seat TriMet bus.
“And even now, that still stings, right?” asked Howes, the prosecutor.
“Absolutely,” Hester said.
Portland Officer Neal Glaske testified he didn’t arrest Christian because Christian was a suspect in an assault and Glaske needed back-up before approaching him. Glaske said the only time he spoke to Christian was while Glaske was driving up to the scene and hollered out of his open window to ask if Christian had been involved in the altercation. Christian said no, Glaske testified.
It’s standard procedure not to approach an assault suspect by yourself, Glaske said.
“For safety reasons,” he said. “I’m not sure what their state of mind is going to be.”
Glaske said he watched as Christian walked away. Glaske said he hopped in his patrol car to follow, but lost sight of Christian. The next time Portland police encountered Christian was late the next afternoon after he stabbed Best, Namkai-Meche and Fletcher.
Civil attorneys for the city of Portland and TriMet watched the morning’s testimony from the back of the courtroom. Both are being sued by the families of Best and Namkai-Meche for $20 million. The lawsuits fault police for failing to arrest Christian after they received the report that he threw the Gatorade bottle at Hester. The suits also claim that the agencies failed to carry out better safety measures for passengers on public transit.
Later Friday, surgeon Kelly Dean Gubler told jurors that Namkai-Meche arrived at Legacy Emanuel Medical Center with wounds to his neck and face but was no longer bleeding likely because his heart had pumped out all of his blood.
“He came in under cardiac arrest,” Gubler said. “My first initial assessment was (are) there signs of life. ... Was he breathing? Did he have a pulse? Did he have electrical activity? ... He did not have any of those.”
Gubler said Micah Fletcher arrived next but wasn’t bleeding much. Fletcher had a wound to his jugular vein but his carotid artery was intact. Namkai-Meche’s carotid had been cut.
Gubler said Fletcher was “very, very fortunate” and Namkai-Meche had suffered a "devastating injury.” Best had died on the train.
Alvin Hall, a former Marine who was riding on the train that day, followed Christian about a mile from the Hollywood station. At one point, Hall saw Christian stopped and washing off blood from his body and his knife with soda, he said.
Hall lost sight of Christian, ran past a large tree and then suddenly saw Christian 6 feet from him, he testified. Christian threatened him, he said.
Hall told jurors that Christian said “'Are you a (expletive) snitch? Do you want some of this?' And (he) held up his knife and he said, ‘I’m going to have to (expletive) do the same thing to you that I did to those guys.’”
Hall ran off, he said, but kept sight of Christian. Christian made the same threat to a skateboarder who came across him along a pedestrian path next to Interstate 84, Hall said.
Christian took off and Hall, the skateboarder and another man who was on the phone with 911 followed Christian to just outside Providence Portland Medical Center. It was then, Hall said, that police pulled up with AR-15s.
The trial is scheduled to continue Monday. Court officials expect it to last most of February.
-- Aimee Green
o_aimee
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