A Portland man who shot and killed a stranger during an argument on a North Portland MAX platform in 2024 has been sentenced to 22 years in prison. Moyasar Osman Mohamed-Ahmed, now 31, pleaded guilty to first-degree manslaughter and unlawful use of a weapon with a firearm in the death of 39-year-old Sean Smeeden.
The shooting happened on June 27, 2024, at the MAX platform at North Interstate Avenue and North Prescott Street, according to KGW. Mohamed-Ahmed and Smeeden reportedly got into an argument, and Mohamed-Ahmed pulled out a gun before the two briefly separated. He then returned and shot Smeeden, who died at the scene. The county medical examiner determined Smeeden died by homicide from a gunshot wound.
TriMet security cameras captured the entire sequence of events, according to the Multnomah County District Attorney's Office, which confirmed the sentence on September 4. The footage showed Mohamed-Ahmed brandishing the firearm during the initial confrontation, stepping away, and then coming back to fire the fatal shot. The case, numbered 24CR33252, was prosecuted by Senior Deputy DA Brian Davidson and investigated by Portland Police Bureau Detective Billy Winters.
Suspect Surrendered Days After Police Named Him
Mohamed-Ahmed did not turn himself in right away. Portland Police identified him as the suspect and issued a warrant for second-degree murder, releasing his photo publicly before he turned himself in to a Clackamas County Sheriff's deputy on July 1, 2024, four days after the shooting, the outlet Your Oregon News reported at the time. Hoodline had also covered his surrender and booking at the Multnomah County Detention Center in the days that followed.
Davidson said of the case, according to KGW, that “this sort of violence has no place in our community.” The District Attorney's Office added that crime in and around the TriMet system will not be tolerated, and said it will aggressively prosecute people who hurt others.
Sentence Reflects Oregon's Mandatory Minimums
Oregon's Ballot Measure 11, codified at ORS 163.118, sets a mandatory minimum of 10 years and a maximum of 20 years for first-degree manslaughter, according to Ward & Grover. That framework, approved by voters in 1994, bars any reduction for parole on violent offenses. Mohamed-Ahmed's 22-year term therefore appears to reflect additional time tied to the firearm enhancement on top of the manslaughter count.
The case is not the only one of its kind to move through Multnomah County Circuit Court recently. In February, Felix Juarez-Perez was sentenced to 23 years after pleading guilty to first-degree manslaughter for a separate 2024 fatal shooting that also grew out of an argument on a TriMet MAX platform, as Hoodline reported in its piece on the MAX platform drug dispute sentencing. Both cases involved verbal disputes that escalated into gunfire on light rail platforms, and both ended in plea deals carrying roughly two decades behind bars.
Transit Safety Concerns Prompted Policy Changes
The Prescott Street station sits along the MAX Yellow Line corridor through North Portland's Overlook neighborhood, where trains have run along Interstate Avenue since 2004, per background compiled on Wikipedia. The shooting there in 2024 landed during a period when rider anxiety about safety on the system was already running high. A TriMet survey that spring found roughly half of riders felt unsafe, with 82% of those concerned citing other riders' behavior as the main reason, according to KGW's earlier reporting on the survey.
Institutional responses followed. In October 2025, the Portland Police Bureau rejoined TriMet's Transit Police unit for the first time since pulling out in 2020, assigning a sergeant and five officers to boost police presence on the light rail system, as reported by OPB. The unit is led by the Multnomah County Sheriff's Office alongside several regional partner agencies. By June 2026, the sheriff's office reported that expanded staffing had allowed transit police to extend coverage to seven days a week during peak afternoon hours, using a stratified policing model to manage calls across buses and light rail.
Citywide Violence Has Declined Since the Shooting
Portland recorded 71 homicides in 2024, a 30% drop from the city's record high of 101 in 2022, though the total remained above pre-pandemic levels, according to statistics reported around that time. Annual shootings citywide also dropped below 1,000 that year for the first time since 2020. The decline has continued since: city officials reported in April that shootings fell 30% in 2025 and that homicides were down 56% year-to-date in early 2026, crediting targeted interventions through the Ceasefire Portland program.
The 22-year sentence for Mohamed-Ahmed follows the same pattern seen in the Juarez-Perez case earlier this year, with Multnomah County prosecutors pursuing lengthy, multi-decade sentences for lethal violence connected to the TriMet system. Together, the two cases mark some of the most severe outcomes tied to disputes that turned fatal on MAX platforms during this period.
