A 24-year-old Portland man accused of stabbing a man to death outside The High Dive bar in Southeast Portland earlier this month was indicted by a Multnomah County grand jury Thursday on murder and bias-crime charges.
Rahnique Usef Jackson is facing one count of second-degree murder, one count of unlawful use of a weapon and one count of a second-degree bias crime stemming from the death of 32-year-old Portland resident Colin Smith, according to the Multnomah County District Attorney’s Office.
Jackson allegedly stabbed Smith outside the bar on Southeast 12th Avenue around 2 a.m. on July 2, after Jackson allegedly harassed an LGBTQ+ person in Smith’s group of friends, according to Smith’s ex-girlfriend Paulina Solis and court records.
Smith, a server at the popular Northeast Portland restaurant Ox, and his friends were sitting at the bar’s outside tables when Jackson came over to harass them, according to court documents.
Solis, who was not at the bar, told the Oregonian/OregonLive last week that Smith and his friends had been having trouble with Jackson after he inappropriately touched a member of their group and then began taking aim at a friend of Smith’s who is LGBTQ+.
Employees of the bar told investigators that Jackson had been sitting at the bar top with some friends celebrating a birthday prior to the altercation, according to court records. Employees said Jackson seemed to be in a bad mood and left the bar top after one of the bartenders made a joke about his lack of tipping, according to court records. He began harassing Smith’s group as he walked past them outside, the employees said.
Members of Jackson’s group told investigators they saw Jackson and another friend arguing with a group of people that was sitting outside, which included Smith, and described Jackson as “out of control and angry,” court documents state. The argument escalated into a fight at the intersection of Southeast Madison Street and 12th Avenue, where members of Jackson’s group said they saw Smith step back and fall to the ground a short while later. Jackson fled the scene as people nearby called 911.
Jackson was arrested by the U.S. Marshals Service last Friday.
Smith was raised in Salt Lake City, Utah, and moved to Portland within the last decade. He loved to cook and to host dinner parties for his friends, Solis said. He had worked at Ox for more than two years, and before that at Baby Doll Pizza. He hoped to eventually open his own restaurant, his sister Danielle Smith told The Oregonian/OregonLive.
“He was a protector,” Solis said. “He died being the person that we all knew him to be.”
— Nick Gibson; ngibson@oregonian.com; 971-393-8259; @newsynicholas
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