Two men have been killed in the US for trying to stop a man abusing a black and a Muslim woman on a train, police in Oregon have confirmed.
The perpetrator fatally stabbed the two men on a commuter train in the city of Portland.
Another passenger was wounded before the attacker was arrested by police.
The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) have urged President Donald Trump to condemn the increasing levels of Islamophobia in the US.
The group accused President Trump of flaming tensions with his divisive statements and policies.
The incident took place at 4.30pm local time (12.30am GMT) on Friday on a train at Hollywood Transit Station, police said in a statement.
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Ricky John Best, 53, a father of four died later in hospital.
Police have identified the suspect as 35-year-old Jeremy Joseph Christian, 35.
A senior researcher with the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), a hate-crime monitoring group, said Christian’s Facebook page said he held “some racist and other extremist beliefs”.
He has been charged with offences including aggravated murder, attempted murder, intimidation and being a felon in possession of a restricted weapon.
Sergeant Pete Simpson said: “Suspect was on the train and he was yelling and ranting and raving a lot of different things, including what would be characterised as hate speech or biased language.
“In the midst of his ranting and raving, some people approached him, appeared to try to intervene with his behaviour. Some of the people that he was yelling at, they were attacked viciously by the suspect, resulting in the two deaths and one injury.”
Christian was arrested shortly after he got off the train.
The two women he abused left the scene before police could speak to them.
One of the girls’ parents later told the Oregonian press that they were teenagers, one black and one Muslim.
Dyjuana Hudson said the attacker “was saying that Muslims should die.”
