A 25-year-old man has been banned for life from TriMet after he was charged in a brutal attack at a Gresham MAX station earlier this month.
Koryn Kraemer remains in jail and faces a second-degree assault charge after police say he attacked a 78-year-old man on the platform of the Cleveland Avenue MAX station in the early hours of Jan. 3. Responding police officers found the attack still underway and said the victim’s ear and part of his face had been chewed off, leaving part of his skull exposed.
MAX service was not running at the time of early-morning attack, but it occurred on TriMet property.
Kraemer is the second person to receive a lifetime ban from the transit agency. The first, Jared Walter, was banned for life in 2019 after he repeatedly sexually assaulted women and cut their hair while riding the bus.
TriMet recently issued two other long-term bans. Brianna Workman, 32, was barred from the transit system for five years after police said she pushed a child from a busy platform onto the MAX tracks at the Gateway Transit Center on Dec. 26. The child was quickly retrieved by bystanders. And Dustin Rasmussen, 22, was banned for five years after he admitted to striking a transit security officer with handlebars taken off a bike, hospitalizing the guard.
TriMet first began issuing long-term bans in 2017 to people who commit assaults on public transit that are charged as felonies. It adopted policies earlier this year allowing for long-term bans for some misdemeanors, including including fourth-degree assault, bias crimes, sexual harassment or carrying a “hoax destructive device.” Such bans are issued at the discretion of the agency’s general manager.
TriMet said long-term bans are not used to penalize those who don’t pay fare, and are enforced for behavior problems only. Recipients of lifetime or long-term bans can appeal to the agency to have it revoked.
