By Carli Brosseau and Allan Brettman

When a Portland police officer told him to stop 15 years ago, Jeremy Christian pulled out his gun.

In response, the officer shot three times, hitting Christian once in his right cheek.

Officers converged on Christian. Lying on the ground, he said he didn't intend to shoot them.

He meant to shoot himself.

Jeremy Joseph Christian has spent much of his adult life saying or doing something provocative, unsettling or, ultimately, horrifying, interviews and a review of court documents show.

That statement about suicide -- uttered as a 20-year-old as he lay bleeding -- was among the first to alarm his friends and family. The attack on a MAX train was his latest. Christian is accused of launching into a racist diatribe and then stabbing three men in the neck, two fatally.

Until that May 12, 2002, armed robbery, Christian had been a likeable teenager obsessed with comic books and heavy metal music. He'd been living at a friend's house and had a job at a pizza parlor, having dropped out of high school and obtained a GED.

The robbery was out of the blue. He had no criminal record and only a negligible scrape with police as a juvenile. But the hold-up was serious – he wore a mask, threatened to shoot the convenience store owner with a .38-caliber revolver and left the man handcuffed to a cigarette rack. Police caught him on his bike a few blocks away with a ski mask sticking out of his pocket.

The robbery mystified his friends. They wondered what possessed him. They talked about a possible break with reality.

Christian spent the next seven years in Oregon prisons. He emerged from behind bars to lead a transient life, building on a fascination with obscure Norse mythology and the idea of a master white race.

It's not clear where he lived or how often he worked a regular job. He sold or traded comic books outside Powell's City of Books. He posted often on Facebook, interspersing political and sometimes violent statements with photographs of his superhero comic book collection arrayed on a floral-patterned easy chair.

He loudly pushed back against authority, no matter how seemingly trivial the slight – even returning to prison over a dispute about comic books. People who knew him from Powell's said he was given to one-sided conversations full of bluster. He was an overbearing sort, yet mostly tolerable. More recently his behavior became aggressive and scary.

***

Marcia Hoy guesses Christian was 11 years old when she met the child who attended Ockley Green Middle School with her own son.

"He was really polite. A little hyper, but a lot of 11-year-old boys are," Hoy said of Christian.

It's difficult for Hoy to talk about Christian, now 35. She stood in front of her Piedmont neighborhood house and burst into tears when asked about the man in jail charged with two counts of aggravated murder and one count of attempted murder in the May 26 train attack.

"We're heartbroken," she said.

Hoy recalled the child who eventually lived two years in the basement of her house, making nearly official his status as a member of her family. From the time she met the middle schooler, Hoy, now 51, became a surrogate mother for Christian. He was a regular presence at her house, close friends with each of Hoy's sons.

Christian was a skateboarder who liked comic books as a youngster. "I don't remember a time when he didn't like comic books," she said.

And like her sons, Christian in his teens migrated to black clothing and a taste for heavy metal music.

When Christian was in his mid-teens, police caught him with other teens rummaging through a Goodwill donation box near North Lombard Street and Interstate Avenue. Authorities released the youths to their parents, Hoy recalled, though she doesn't recall a legal punishment.

Christian dropped out of Jefferson High School and later earned a GED certificate. At 16, he got his first job at a Pietro's Pizza on North Lombard Avenue and worked there for four years. He took classes at Portland Community College for about a year.

When he was 18, he moved into the basement of Hoy's house.

"He didn't want to live at home anymore," Hoy said. "He clashed with his parents. Most kids do. I rented a room to him and said as long as you work and keep clean and don't get into trouble you can continue to live here."

Hoy said she's hesitant to speak about Christian and his home life but said he and his three brothers "were on a tight leash. And she was a very strict mom. I understand that. You can't just let your kids run wild."

Attempts by The Oregonian/OregonLive to reach Christian's parents have been unsuccessful. However, within hours after her son was identified as the suspect in the MAX killings, Mary Christine Christian told a Huffington Post reporter, "I can't imagine he would do anything like this, unless he was on drugs or something."

"He's been in prison, he's always been spouting anti-establishment stuff, but he's a nice person," she said. "I just can't imagine."

Hoy said she began to notice a change in Christian's demeanor at the beginning of 2002. He became more quiet and took less care in his appearance. She thought then he might have a mental illness.

Hoy said Christian often complained that he'd been accused of stealing at Ed's Market, a convenience store at North Lombard Street and Vancouver Avenue near the Hoy and Christian households.

The market owner, Bob Sung, was staying late to finish paperwork the night of the robbery when a man walked in wearing a black ski mask, with openings cut out for the man's eyes, nose and mouth. He looked around the store to see whether anyone else was inside and then walked out.

"I thought he was just joking or kidding," Sung said. "But then he walked back in."

Christian took at least $1,000 and cartons of cigarettes and fled on his bike. When police caught up with him, he dropped his bike and ran. The officer chased him for about half a block and fired three shots.

In addition to saying he was going to shoot himself, the wounded Christian also told an officer that "he robbed the market because the guy there doesn't sell any winning lottery tickets," a court document said.

Hoy said she contacted Christian's first attorney concerned about his mental health.

"I told him he needed help," Hoy said. "There was something wrong."

Christian's mother also worried about his mental health, saying at the time that he "possibly needs help for depression," according to a document seeking his release on bail.

About two months after his arrest, court-appointed defense attorney Andrew Kohlmetz filed a notice to the court that said Christian "intends to rely upon expert testimony to establish" his mental disease.

Two weeks later, Kohlmetz was dismissed as Christian's attorney. "Relationship has broken down" is the reason cited on the document seeking a new attorney.

Fifteen years later, Kohlmetz said he doesn't recall the case, noting a public defender's typically heavy workload.

But Kohlmetz, a Portland attorney in private practice, did say, "The Department of Corrections is no place to put people with mental illness. ... I've never seen anyone go in who is legitimately mentally ill and come out in better shape."

Christian's next court-appointed attorney, Matthew Kaplan, remembered representing Christian but, "I don't recall having any problems in terms of feeling he wasn't able to aid and assist" in his defense.

Overall, Kaplan, also now a Portland attorney in private practice, remembered thinking, "what a strange case."

"We see young people commit crimes that are really stupid like that," he said. But "you don't start with armed robbery, right? You graduate from stealing drugs and possessing drugs (or) stealing cars."

Also, he said, he remembered Christian as being "funny and likable ... the contrast to what is out there now is stark."

***

Christian pleaded guilty in November 2002 to first-degree robbery with a firearm and second-degree kidnapping and was sentenced to 90 months in prison. The Oregon Department of Corrections declined a request by The Oregonian/OregonLive for Christian's disciplinary records, but there are indications his incarceration had moments of tumult.

Hoy said he was placed in solitary confinement in November 2003 after acting out. Christian was upset that prison authorities wouldn't allow him to attend the funeral for one of Hoy's sons, who committed suicide, she said. Christian's Facebook page includes a photocopy of a November 2008 Corrections Department misconduct report.

In October 2013, a federal judge sent Christian back to prison for nine months after he bullied and intimidated a halfway house worker who told him he could no longer use the computers there. Christian had been looking up comic book prices rather than searching for a job.

"I don't know what more can be done here for the defendant," U.S. District Judge Anna Brown said when Christian appeared before her at his fifth probation violation hearing tied to a 2011 gun possession case. He had repeatedly used drugs and left the halfway house without permission, court records show.

"He's pretty defiant and confrontational," Brown said.

It's not clear precisely when and where Christian adopted a white supremacist ideology, but experts in extremism say Christian's history points to three prime conduits: prison, the black metal scene and white supremacist internet postings.

Some people with mental illness are attracted to those ideologies, said David Neiwert, an author who has written about far-right extremism in the Pacific Northwest since the 1980s. "They offer special knowledge that only we have, and you'll be smarter than anyone else if you have it."

Access to secret knowledge is especially tempting to people with a tendency toward paranoia, Neiwert said. And those people may be more inclined toward violence.

"Mental instability is what will tip them over into action," he said. "A lot of people have these attitudes; they just don't act on them."

Joe Navarro, a cofounder of the FBI's elite Behavioral Analysis Program, said it's a mistake to reduce Christian's alleged crimes to an outgrowth of mental illness.

Rather, Christian has a severely flawed character with the innate traits of "both the predator and the paranoid," Navarro said.

Navarro draws on more than two decades of interviews with perpetrators of violence and their victims in his book "Dangerous Personalities." He describes four main types: the narcissistic, the emotionally unstable, the predator and the paranoid.

Christian's delight in pushing social boundaries is the mark of a predator, Navarro said, and his explosive rants at other cultures are evidence of paranoia.

Stress can exacerbate the behavior of people with flawed characters, and Christian's increasing agitation in the wake of media attention at a "free speech" rally in April could be further evidence.

"Normal people are not stimulated by wanting to do violence," he said. "A lot of times, people who are flawed of character are looking for an organization so that they can commit violence under the cover of a group."

In his book, Navarro points out that friends and family often don't recognize a dangerous personality. "Most people, unfortunately, are simply not motivated to look closer," he wrote. "In fact, society frowns on meddling in other people's business, and frankly, most people simply don't know what to look for. Sadly, social blindness is the rule, not the exception."

***

For the past year, Christian's agitation seemed to be escalating.

On Aug. 29, 2016, he reposted a poem on his personal Facebook page that he had originally posted in 2011. Called "Cracks," the poem begins, "I'm shrivellin' Dying. Inside of a Cage."

Among his posts the following day: "Survival Tip #1: Kill Every Other Person."

In November, Christian posted that he hoped Attorney General Jeff Sessions would be assassinated.

A Facebook friend asked in the comments, "Did someone hijack your account?"

Christian said no and upped the ante. He said that he posted on Sessions' congressional Facebook page and then claimed he had already been declared a domestic terrorist.

In December, Christian posted screenshots of a Facebook conversation about rap music that devolved into Christian using the N-word and telling a woman to kill herself. He titled it "Good Times." His next post was about splitting the United States into racially divided "homelands."

In January, Christian may have been involved in an early morning stabbing outside Voodoo Doughnut, police said. He's under investigation in the case, they said.

Artist Raymond Alexander, 68, has lived in Portland 50 years, arriving from Virginia. He's known of Jeremy Christian for at least five years. (Allan Brettman/staff)

Christian was also sharing his ideology to anyone who would listen.

"He didn't ever use the master race issue on me," said street artist Raymond Alexander, who for at least five years shared the corner of West Burnside Street and Northwest Tenth Avenue outside Powell's City of Books with Christian, who sold or traded comic books.

"He went way back to Norway," Alexander said, "to some secret society that if they find out about this document that's never been exposed to the world then there's going to be mass chaos throughout the world... he was tied up in mythology, tied up in Viking blood lines."

Alexander said he was able to converse with Christian, but it was often a one-sided exchange.

"He was a loud talker," Alexander said. "He was profane and he would not allow you to get in a word like regular human beings."

Christian didn't say anything racist to Ken Chambers, another regular on the sidewalks around Powell's, over the past nine months. But he did mention reptilians -- part-human creatures that feature in fantasy stories and conspiracy theories about manipulative, shape-shifting aliens.

"That's when I was like, 'OK, I'm done.' I wouldn't say I thought he was mentally ill, but it did seem like he entertained fantastical ideas," Chambers said. "I just figured he was really impressionable and had gone down a conspiracy theory rabbit hole."

"He was preparing for some kind of catastrophe," Chambers said. That was a couple of months ago.

Christian began making more direct threats on Facebook.

On April 18, he posted screen shots directing derogatory language at a woman who lives in Texas and threatened to "come down to TX." His remarks appeared to be in response to the woman calling someone else a Nazi.

Christian later commented on the same thread, "Since you brought up Violence I'm gonna stab some masked up bitches protesting Black Metal shows as soon as they touch me. All thanks to you ignorance and insolence you wretched wench..."

On April 26, he invited his metalhead friends "wanting to get Antifa" to join him at an upcoming "free speech" march planned by an alt-right group.

***

Three days later, Christian went to the free speech rally. He was wearing a Portland police Gang Resistance Education and Training T-shirt, a Wolverine baseball cap and a 1776 flag billowing behind him as a cape. In his hand, a baseball bat.

He yelled the N-word and "Hail Vinland!" Other people at the march shunned him especially after he gave a Nazi salute.

"I'm not here to join anyone, I'm here to be heard," Christian said in a video recorded by a Portland Mercury reporter.

A few days later, Christian recognized a face from the rally in a car near Powell's. He ran along Burnside Street for a block to catch up with Patrick Stupfel, who was driving.

Christian stuck his head in the window and tried to bond with Stupfel over their appreciation for free speech.

But Stupfel yelled "racist" so other people would hear, he said in an interview. He didn't want to be associated with Christian after watching his behavior at the march.

Stupfel called police to report the exchange and subsequent threats. Records show police didn't write a report.

On May 10, Christian further stoked the conflict. In the comments beneath a video Stupfel posted on the rally's event page, Christian wrote: "Gonna knock you out Pat and here is the premeditation you punk homogeneous snitch. It's gonna feel good!!!"

Later in the thread, he claimed his behavior at the march was designed to highlight the hypocrisy of the other marchers, who acted together to limit his speech.

Christian's angry behavior also attracted attention at the Portland Saturday Market. He would sell comic books near Skidmore Fountain and was normally quiet, the Portland Mercury reported, citing anonymous vendors. But on May 20, Christian reportedly ranted and swore for over an hour.

Five days later, Christian was accused of hurling racial slurs and a bottle at a black woman, who maced him at a MAX station.

Another public transit passenger recorded Christian ranting that day, KOIN reported.

"Looks like we got a (expletive) Christian or Muslim bus driver," he said in the video. "I'll stab you too."

The next day, Christian boarded the MAX with sangria and a knife.

-- Reporter Lizzy Acker contributed.

-- Carli Brosseau

cbrosseau@oregonian.com

503-294-5121; @carlibrosseau

--Allan Brettman

503-294-5900

@allanbrettman