A white Portland man is accused of yelling racial slurs at two Black people while physically preventing them from boarding a MAX train at the Providence Park station on Tuesday evening.
Rick Duncan, 53, allegedly charged at the two people at the MAX station, called them “n******”, told them to “go home,” and put his hands on one of the two to prevent her from boarding the train after it arrived and threatened to beat her up, the probable cause affidavit says.
A witness backed up their account to police that Duncan was yelling racial slurs at them. The two apparent victims tracked down a cop. Police tracked down Duncan.
Duncan initially denied he yelled slurs, the affidavit says. He then told cops that he only said “What’s up my nigga”—the racial slur, but ending with an “a” and not an “er”—to the pair. According to the affidavit, he then said increasingly racist things in front of the police.
“Ducan said ‘These ghettos’ just get him so angry,” the affidavit states. “Duncan also said he is ‘sick and tired of these people having babies and moving out here.’ … As Duncan was being placed in the patrol car, he shouted more racial slurs.”
Duncan is charged with intimidation in the second degree (a bias crime) and harassment.
A social media post from a confirmed witness in this incident has been shared widely on Facebook since it was published yesterday. It calls into question how a police officer at the scene handled the complaint. The post said the witness brought up how Duncan “could be another Jeremy Christian”—the Portland man who killed two people and severely wounded another on a MAX train in May—and the officer, the post said, blamed one of the victims, and not Christian, for the stabbing deaths.
We will update this post when more information comes in. Know anything? Reach out confidentially to me at doug@portlandmercury.com.
Update: Portland Police Bureau spokesperson Sgt. Chris Burley says the officers in question weren’t from the PPB:
The Transit Division is comprised of multiple agencies from around the Portland Metropolitan area. The two officers that responded to the incident involving Duncan, at the Providence Park Transit Station, are assigned to the Transit Division from Tigard and Gresham Police Departments. Both officers agencies have been notified for potential follow-up investigation.
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I’d like to know what the Portland po-po have to say about stuff like this. Based on what I’ve read, even getting up in people’s faces and yelling slurs is illegal. Free speech is intended for diplomatic discourse, not spewing garbage and inciting violence.
Intimidation is definitely no one’s right; it’s a crime. Looking at the picture of the perp, I think our years of imprisoning stray boys by the thous is culminating in a wave of hateful, prison-radicalized white supremacists. Aryan Nations is no joke. Public transit will need more and more police to keep the public relatively safe.
It all just seems pretty god damned sad to me.
We will know that the new police chief actually intends to improve things the day Mark Kruger is fired, until then I will not be surprised to learn that their are Nazi sympathizers on the force.
Deport him back to Idaho.
It never cease to amaze me that these people who believe the white skin on their a**es makes them superior to other human beings are ALWAYS ALWAYS NEANDERTHALS WITH THE IQs LOWER THAN YOUR AVERAGE ROCK. This man is 53 years old and walks around spending his time harassing people, calling them racial slurs and physically intimidating them? GET A LIFE! CRAWL BACK INTO YOUR HOLE! FFS ENOUGH!!! Racists/white supremacists/KKK/Nazis in this state and in this country are so pathetic. Just like 45 they are big babies who need to be assured that they are not irrelevant in this world (but, in fact, they are irrelevant). Welcome to the multicultural global society, accept it and evolve or crawl under a rock and die. The rest of us would like to live in peace.
Conformational bias of paranoid Nazi witch hunts using a case you know nothing about. Why this is news idk.
And hero fantasies aside how are u so certain Christian was not Interrupted from What seems to have began as a completely nonviolent tirade, verbally and even physically cornered before literally warning ” you’ll not heal”? People get in other peoples business, use passive aggressive tactics, misconstrue situation s to suit their subjective sense of morality, and – intention ally or just negligently – instigate conflict every day. On the east coast they get tossed into a river and it is just another person on the daily news. Here though they become a martyr because were soooo certain we know what really happened on that train because we read it on tabloid news.
Way I read – nay heard it from christians own lips on YouTube – he represented himself only and was open to supporting anyone if he likes what they had to say ( personally I Interpreted this as just meaning if they made good sense which a lot of protestors he was dealing with at the time did nit) Yet now he is a poster boy for some national supreme cist group?
Group thinking. Witch hunting. Tabloid news.
guidogazz, faithful Nazi and white supremacist defender in the Mercury comments section, and total pile of steaming dog shit. Kill yourself.
Got some bad news for you libtard, according to the Supreme Court June 17 2017, Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito ” The idea that the government may restrict or speech expressing ideas that offend … strikes at the heart of the First Amendment. Speech that demeans on the basis of race, ethnicity, gender, religion, age, disability, or any other similar ground is hateful; but the proudest boast of our free speech jurisprudence is that we protect the freedom to express “the thought that we hate.” June 17 2017, Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy “A law found to discriminate based on viewpoint is an “egregious form of content discrimination,” which is “presumptively unconstitutional.” … A law that can be directed against speech found offensive to some portion of the public can be turned against minority and dissenting views to the detriment of all. The First Amendment does not entrust that power to the government’s benevolence. Instead, our reliance must be on the substantial safeguards of free and open discussion in a democratic society.” So essentially the basis of your article was unanimously found just a few weeks ago, to be unconstitutional and actually an expression of a right you do not, nor have ever possessed at all. Key point here The first amendment does not entrust that power to the governments benevolence. So to put it simply for simply minded libtards like you. Hate Speech laws are unconstitutional, the government simply has no right, and your so called racial slurs are basically about you people getting over yourself. He can say what he wants, when he wants, where he wants.
radennis1985, you’re pretty obviously ignorant and hateful and a pile of human shit, and more importantly for our purposes here, not a lawyer.
While the government can’t restrict speech, and couldn’t prosecute this asshole if all he did was yell hateful things from a distance, it can very well prosecute him for blocking people from getting on the MAX train. Furthermore, it can tack on a very constitutional hate crime charge to enhance whatever penalty he clearly deserves.
Since you’re probably not familiar with it, the case you should be reading that actually applies here is Wisconsin v. Mitchell, 508 U.S. 476 (1993), in which the Supreme Court UNANIMOUSLY HELD that a penalty-enhancement provision based on a defendant’s racial motive for committing a particular crime does not violate the First Amendment.
You’re welcome for this lesson in civics and completely owning your ignorant pig-fucking ass.