MAX murder victim who protected DD students subject of book
Posted April 15, 2022
By Nardin Ishak
Staff Reporter
Tell Everyone on This Train I Love Them is the title of a new book by Maeve Higgins, who was inspired by the last words of Taliesin Myrddin Namkai-Meche, who was killed by convicted murdererJeremy Christian on a rush-hour MAX train on May 26, 2017 while Namkai-Meche was trying to protect two then David Doulas High School students.
Christian, a known white supremacist and Islamaphobic, targeted and harassed African American DDHS students Destinee Mangum and Walia Mohammed, who was wearing a hijab, on a westbound MAX train. He was interrupted by Namkai-Meche, 23, Ricky John Best, 53, and Micah David-Cole Fletcher, 21. Namkai-Meche was a recent graduate of Reed College. Those who knew him said they would not have expected a different reaction from him.
MANGUM
MOHAMMED
“He really fully believed that his life could help make change happen,” stated Asha Deliverance, Namkai-Meche's mother, to Higgins. “And he had enough fire behind him to really believe that. He was not a lost soul at all; he was a soul with purpose.”
Best was a technician for the City of Portland's Bureau of Development Services, a U.S. Army veteran who retired in 2012 after more than 20 years of service, and father of four. He was heading home to his kids in Happy Valley the day of the incident. His family remembered him as a hero.
"He couldn’t just stand by and do nothing,” Best's teenage son Erik told KATU. “He died fighting the good fight protecting the innocent. Honestly, that's what he probably wanted.”
Fletcher was a student at Portland State University. He was known amongst his friends to be deeply empathetic and stood against injustices.
"I was shocked it was him, but I wasn't surprised it was him," said Micah´s close friend, Elie Hoover, 24. "I can't see him not standing up."
Namkai-Meche and Best were viciously stabbed to death by Christian. Fletcher was severely wounded but survived. MAX passenger Rachel Macy recalls the moment. Macy stated the three victims —Best, Namkai-Meche, and Fletcher—appeared to be blocking Christian from the girls when Christian attacked them.
"It was just a swift, hard hit,'' she said. "It was a nightmare.''
Christian was found guilty of murder in 2020 and was subsequently sentenced to two consecutive life terms in prison.
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Macy stayed with Namkai-Meche until help arrived.
"Tell everyone on this train I love them," were his last words to her before being taken on a stretcher by paramedics. He died before reaching the hospital.
Those words had a huge impact on Higgins, an Irish podcaster and comedian who is also a New York Times contributor. She wrote about it in an Op-Ed published in The Guardian.
“These beautiful words stopped me in my tracks when I first heard them,” she wrote. “They gave me a directive, a way of being. At my best moments, this stranger’s last words guided where I looked, how I acted, and what I chose to do with my time.”
Higgins' book, which was inspired by those last words, offers a series of essays inspired by her experiences living in the U.S as she tries to balance her pessimism and optimism about the nation’s future.