[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 163 (2017), Part 6]
[Senate]
[Pages 8791-8792]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




               HONORING THE HEROES OF THE PORTLAND ATTACK

  Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, Senator Merkley and I have come today 
together to discuss our resolution honoring the heroes of the Portland 
attack. On May 26 in Portland, our hometown, our community lost two 
very brave people: Ricky Best and Taliesin Myrddin Namkai-Meche. They 
stood up courageously against terrorism and for core American and 
Oregon values of tolerance and freedom.
  Along with Micah David-Cole Fletcher, who was seriously injured, 
these three extraordinary Samaritans stepped in to protect two girls 
who were being terrorized on public transit by a man menacing them 
because he thought they were Muslim. These three Oregon heroes did not 
run when they saw danger. Instead, these three advanced toward the 
danger.
  I paid my respects last week at the beautiful memorial that my fellow 
Portlanders created at the transit station where this attack occurred. 
I can assure my colleagues that the message of the memorial could not 
be more clear: The heroes of Portland stood up to terror, and we ought 
to be willing to call out the hate and the evil they confronted.
  So today, I join with our friend and colleague Senator Merkley to 
express our deepest condolences to the families, the friends of the 
victims, so that we can all make clear how much we appreciate them and 
how grateful we are--and we all are--to be able to stand with the two 
girls who were being terrorized and to support all community efforts to 
overcome hatred and bigotry and violence.
  As a son of parents who fled the Nazis, I know full well what hate 
speech is all about. There must be zero tolerance for hate speech and 
violence because otherwise you give it room to fester and grow. Hate 
speech and violence must have no place in Oregon or anywhere else in 
our great Nation.
  With these three Oregon heroes forever in our memories, we must and 
we will recommit to fighting hate, violence, and terrorism every chance 
that we have. We urge adoption of this important resolution.
  I yield to my friend and colleague Senator Merkley.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oregon.
  Mr. MERKLEY. Mr. President, I thank my friend and colleague Senator 
Wyden for submitting this resolution. I am proud to partner with him as 
we address this senseless, deadly attack that occurred back home in 
Oregon just 12 days ago.
  Robert Kennedy once said: ``We must recognize that this short life 
can neither be ennobled or enriched by hatred.'' We have been reminded 
of that in this part of our history in the last year and a half in 
which we have seen acts of hatred flourishing across the country, 
preying on divisions among parts of our society. It is incumbent on all 
of us to call out the unacceptability of hate speech and certainly to 
work to bring unity where there has been division.
  This all came together in dramatic, deadly fashion on the MAX train 
when a man spouting hatred and anti-Muslim rhetoric accosted two young 
women sitting on the train. Three men stood up and sprang into action 
and told him that was unacceptable.
  I wish we could turn back the clock and have the incident stop right 
there with that intervention. These men, by being willing to stand up 
in that setting, are champions of justice. They were saying that this 
is unacceptable. They were saying that it must stop. But then this 
confrontation turned deadly, with the man spouting the hate speech 
pulling a knife, stabbing all three of these champions, killing two of 
them, and nearly killing the third. These individuals, Rick Best and 
Taliesin Myrddin Namkai-Meche, paid with their lives. The third 
individual, Micah David-Cole Fletcher, came very close to losing his as 
well.
  We have been holding the families in our hearts and in our prayers. 
The community came together and had a vigil and another ceremony at the 
Muslim educational center and at the funerals to let the families know 
that, across Oregon, people are carrying them in their hearts and 
prayers. Certainly, one of those prayers was for the full recovery of 
Micah David-Cole Fletcher. He is back on his feet, and it is just a 
beautiful thing to see that he is out of the hospital. He spoke very 
eloquent words that I would like to share with you. In the days after 
the attack, he said:

       I want you to imagine that for a second, being the little 
     girl on that MAX. This man is screaming at you. His face is a 
     pile of knives, his body is a gun, everything about him is 
     cocked, loaded and ready to kill you. There's a history here 
     with this. You can feel that this has happened before. And 
     the only thing that was different was the names and faces.

  Micah continued. He said:

       And then a stranger, two strangers, three strangers, come 
     to your aid, they try to help you, and that pile of knives 
     just throws itself at them. Kills them.

  Well, this was an extraordinarily traumatic experience for these 
young girls simply to be accosted on the train and all the more so to 
see that those who came to their rescue were stabbed, with two of them 
dying and the third badly injured.
  Our hearts are, again, so connected to the families. We must have a 
determination as a society to put healing where there has been 
division, to put empathy where there has been antipathy, to replace 
hatred with a connection, with a love.
  Robert Kennedy said in that same speech when he was commenting on the 
fact that nothing has ever been ennobled or enriched by hatred--he 
continued to say this:

       But we can perhaps remember--if only for a time--that those 
     who live with us are our brothers, that they share with us 
     the same short moment of life, that they seek--as do we--
     nothing but the chance to live out their lives in purpose and 
     in happiness, winning what satisfaction and fulfillment that 
     they can.

  Can't we come together as a society and enable each person to be able 
to live out their lives in purpose and happiness and set aside this 
divisiveness and this hatred?
  I hope on this occasion, as we honor the incredible heroism of the 
three men who sprang into action and as we mourn the loss of two of 
them, that we all will dedicate ourselves to this purpose of creating a 
connection, creating unity, and creating respect and that we shall see 
the banishment of hate speech and hate violence.
  Thank you, Mr. President.
  Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, we yield back the remainder of our time.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Michigan.
  (The remarks of Mr. Peters pertaining to the introduction of S. 1308

[[Page 8792]]

are printed in today's Record under ``Statements on Introduced Bills 
and Joint Resolutions.'')
  Mr. PETERS. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

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