Muslim activists launched a crowdfunding campaign on Saturday to raise money for the families of the victims targeted in a possible hate crime stabbing in Portland, Oregon, in which a man allegedly shouted anti-Muslim slurs before stabbing to death two passengers and injuring a third man who had tried to intervene, local police reported.

Portland police spokesman Pete Simpson said that the victims, Ricky John Best, 53, and Taliesin Myrddin Namkai Meche, 23, had attempted to calm the suspect, who was “ranting and raving” against two young women who appeared to be Muslim, one of whom was reportedly wearing a hijab, on Portland’s light-rail on Friday. The men were “attacked viciously by the suspect,” causing them to later succumb to their wounds, said the police spokesman. The third victim, 21-year-old Micah David-Cole Fletcher, also attempted to intervene before being stabbed by the suspect. He is injured but expected to survive.

Hate group monitors found that the 35-year-old suspect, Jeremy Joseph Christian of North Portland, has a history of identifying with white supremacist ideology, including anti-Muslim sentiments. He appeared at a right-wing free speech rally in Portland last month, where he was filmed giving the Nazi salute and screaming “die Muslims, die fake Christians, die Jews.”

Shortly after the stabbing, activists from the Muslim organizations the Muslim Education Trust (MET) and CelebrateMercy launched a campaign on the Muslim-oriented crowdfunding website LaunchGood. Writing on the campaign page, organizers said that they “wish to respond to hate with love, to evil with good, as our faith instructs us, and send a powerful message of compassion through action.”

According to organizers, the campaign hit its initial goal of $60,000 within five hours, and subsequently raised their fundraising goal another two times. The current goal stands at $250,000. The campaign’s thousands of supporters have donated more than $161,000 as of early Sunday.

They added that the campaign is organized by Muslims on a platform intended for Islamic crowdfunding projects, but that they welcomed donations from everyone, in order to ease the victims’ families’ “burdens in some way and also show our heartfelt appreciation for their heroic acts against Islamophobia.”

Christian, the suspect, has been arrested on two charges of aggravated murder, in addition to two counts of second-degree intimidation, and possessing a restricted weapon. He is due to appear in court on Monday, where he may also face hate crime charges.