A 33-year-old Portland woman, Brianna Lace Workman, has been condemned to a decade in psychiatric custody after a harrowing incident last December, where she violently shoved a 3-year-old girl onto the MAX train tracks. The Multnomah County District Attorney's Office confirmed that Workman was convicted of multiple felony counts, acknowledging her mental illness at the time of the attack. As per the decision handed down by Multnomah County Circuit Court Judge Nan Waller, Workman is to be placed under the aegis of the Psychiatric Security Review Board for appropriate care and treatment, with her time in custody not to exceed 10 years.
The unprovoked assault, which occurred on December 28, 2022, at the Gateway Transit Center's MAX platform, was seemingly random, according to witnesses. The victim's mother expressed to investigators that they had no contact with Workman prior to the assault. The child miraculously escaped with minor injuries, despite landing face-first on the railway tracks and suffering a severe headache, reported KRCR. The mother's fright was echoed by a bystander who described the chilling scene to KGW, saying she saw "just saw a little girl flying into the tracks" and the victim's head bouncing off the metal.
Workman faced a slew of charges, including attempted assault in the first degree, assault in the third degree, interfering with public transportation, disorderly conduct in the second degree and recklessly endangering another person. According to KATU, Multnomah County Deputy District Attorneys Sean Hughey and Julian Samuels were at the forefront of the prosecution for this case.
Context provided by court documents sheds light on Workman's challenges preceding the December incident; she had various previous run-ins with the law, including felony convictions and heroin possession dating back to 2013, and was experiencing homelessness at the time of the attack. Despite these tribulations, Workman was dealt with the maximum sentences allowable for her actions, showcasing the legal system's firm response to such distasteful acts of public violence, especially those endangering the lives of innocent children.
