A 45-year-old Portland man is being held without bail after prosecutors say he attacked a fellow passenger and threatened to cut off his head with a machete aboard a TriMet train. Tobias Ceaser Pacheco was arraigned Friday on charges of attempted murder, attempted assault, unlawful use of a weapon, interfering with public transportation and reckless endangerment, and is due back in court October 27.
Fight Reported Near Gateway Transit Center
According to court documents cited by KATU, police responded to reports of a fight at Gateway Transit Center on October 15. Responding officers found a man holding a machete and took him into custody, the station reported, while the other passenger involved — a minor — ran off and tried to hide behind a row of cars at a nearby parking garage before being detained.
Pacheco told officers the other passenger had a gun and that he had cut the passenger's face and gone for his head, according to court documents. Per the same account, Pacheco said he was not going to let the other passenger get him first. The minor passenger claimed he did not have a gun, though CCTV footage reviewed by investigators showed him throwing what appeared to be a gun underneath a vehicle, the station's report states.
A judge granted prosecutors' request to hold Pacheco without bail pending a preventive-detention hearing, according to court records referenced in the station's reporting. Oregon law allows a court to deny pretrial release and impose preventive detention only for defendants charged with specific crimes under public-safety conditions, according to the Oregon Legislative Information System.
Prior Convictions and Pending Charges
Court records show Pacheco has prior convictions for second-degree burglary in San Joaquin County, California, in 1999, DUII in Multnomah County in 2020, and criminal mischief in Clackamas County in 2022. The charge of interfering with public transportation corresponds to ORS 166.116 under Oregon Revised Statutes, while the unlawful-use-of-a-weapon count covers attempting to use a weapon unlawfully against another person or carrying one with that intent, per Oregon Legislature records. The reckless endangerment charge falls under ORS 163.195, Oregon Revised Statutes show.
Part of a Wider Pattern on Portland Transit
This case lands amid a stretch of violent incidents on Portland's transit system. In October 2025, a TriMet bus passenger suffered severe facial trauma and had fingernails stomped off in an attack near Southeast Stark Street and Southeast 142nd Avenue, according to a Portland police officer cited by KOIN. A judge later sentenced Audric Yesiki to 7.5 years in prison and three years of supervised release for assault and unlawful use of a weapon in that case, while codefendant Rinson Tom pleaded guilty to assault and received the same 7.5-year term, KOIN reported.
Separately, a Portland jury earlier this month acquitted Michael Grover Phill of attempted murder after he shot a man named Lance Hicks once in the thigh on a MAX train near the East 122nd Avenue station in January, though jurors convicted Phill of being a felon in possession of a firearm, according to The Oregonian/OregonLive. That outlet reported Phill was sentenced to 25 months in prison for the firearm conviction.
TriMet Boosts Police Presence
The incidents arrive as TriMet ramps up its security footprint. The agency increased Transit Police patrol hours by 38.5% during 2025, logging 13,121 dedicated hours directly on trains, buses and platforms, according to the Multnomah County Sheriff's Office. The sheriff's office also reported a 26.2% increase in self-initiated actions, culminating in 6,147 proactive contacts, and 32 large-scale public safety missions that yielded 309 arrests across the system in 2025.
TriMet also signed a new contract with the Portland Police Bureau to add five officers and a sergeant to its Transit Police Division, bringing the unit's law-enforcement roster to 31 members — down from a peak of 65, according to OPB. That same report noted calls for police service on TriMet fell by almost half from 2021 to 2024, with a 2024 transit police report recording 4,387 calls for service that year.
