Two men were stabbed to death on a commuter train in the US city of Portland when they tried to stop a man from abusing two women who appeared to be Muslim, police said.
The stabbing occurred on a Metropolitan Area Express (MAX) light-rail train on Friday evening, police officials said. One of the victims died at the scene while the other died in hospital, NBC News reported. A third passenger was also stabbed, but suffered non-life threatening injures, said Portland police Sgt. Pete Simpson.
The suspect's speech was directed at two young Muslim women, one of whom was reported to have been wearing a hijab. However one of the girl's parents later said that they were teenagers, one black and one Muslim, said the report. Simpson said the men were attacked after at least a couple of them tried to intervene after the man was "ranting and raving" and using language that could be characterised as hate or bias speech, some of which was anti-Muslim.