An Army veteran with first-aid training was one of the first people to help Micah Fletcher as the college student stumbled off a MAX train at the Hollywood Transit Center on May 26, 2017, clutching his neck and pleading for help. 

Marcus Knipe put his hand on Fletcher’s neck to try to stop the bleeding as much as he could, he testified Wednesday.  A woman gave him her child’s jacket and a baby blanket to use to apply pressure to the jagged wound. 

Knipe said he had Fletcher sit on the ground and propped his back up against a pole. 

“I told him he needed to match my breathing, calm down. ...  I knew his heart rate was elevated.  If there was the slightest chance it was close to the jugular ... it could burst and it would be very hard to keep him alive,” Knipe said as the second day of testimony began in the MAX stabbings trial of Jeremy Christian. 

Eight witnesses took the stand, for a total of 11 so far in the trial.  Most were aboard train car No.  415 at the time of the late afternoon attacks on the Friday before the Memorial Day holiday. 

Christian is accused of first-degree murder for fatally stabbing Ricky Best, 53, and Taliesin Namkai-Meche, 23, and attempted first-degree murder for stabbing Fletcher, then 21 and a student at Portland State University who was on his way to his pizza job. 

Prosecutors allege Christian first stabbed Fletcher after they shoved each other, then Namkai-Meche and Best as they stood nearby.  Moments earlier, Christian had launched into a hate-filled diatribe on the crowded train with two teenage girls sitting nearby, one African American and one wearing a hijab. 

Video shown in court Tuesday shows Fletcher running off the train after Christian swings his arm at Fletcher.  Prosecutor Don Rees said Christian took a 4-inch folding knife from the pocket of his shorts and started stabbing. 

Knipe said the seriously injured Fletcher asked to call his mother -- and Knipe said he could but not to mention how severely he was hurt. 

“I said ... tell her you were hurt,” Knipe recalled. “ Tell her you’re going to be OK.  But if she knows (how bad it is) ... she might get hysterical. ...  It might be bad for you.  I said, ‘Keep it calm.’” 

While on the phone, Fletcher asked his mom to tell his employer, Stark Street Pizza, that he wasn’t going to make it to work that day. 

Knipe let out a small chuckle at that and prosecutor Don Rees asked him why.  Knipe said it was that Fletcher was worried about being late to his job and not whether he was going to live or die. 

Knipe soon took Fletcher’s phone from him. “ I didn’t want him moving his jaw or moving the muscles in his neck because it’d maybe cause more damage,” he said. 

Another Army veteran, Morgan Noonan, testified that he was on the train and saw Christian stab both Namkai-Meche and Best.  A former medic who rescued service members in combat, Noonan said he knew the men wouldn’t survive -- and believed they knew it, too. 

“A human being knows when they’re mortally wounded,” Noonan said. "... You see it in their eyes, their behavior.” 

Noonan said he tried to help but realized he couldn’t stop the bleeding.  Namkai-Meche’s trachea was punctured and he was spitting blood.  Best’s heart was pumping out blood onto the train floor, he said. 

“Waves of (Best’s) blood were ... lapping down the aisle," Noonan said. " So I knew every time his heart beat that he was bleeding to death.” 

Noonan said Best died quickly.  As he spoke, members of the men’s families sitting in the courtroom gallery were visibly upset.  A woman rubbed a young man’s back as he gazed toward the floor. 

The prosecution said Best was dead when paramedics arrived and Namkai-Meche was still showing signs of life but was pronounced dead after he was rushed to the hospital. 

Noonan said from the moment he stepped onto the Green Line train near Lloyd Center, “the hairs on the back of my neck went up.”  Christian was yelling and the atmosphere was tense. 

Witnesses and prosecutors have said Christian was shouting racist and xenophobic slurs near the teenage girls, praising his rights to free speech, talking about beheading people and condemning Muslims, Christians and Jews. 

Noonan said he heard the two girls tell Christian to leave them alone and Christian then bellowed: "I should cut your (expletive) heads off.” 

Noonan knew Best and had talked to him from time to time because they were both regular commuters and shared a common history, time served in the Army, he said.  Noonan said he and Best glanced across the maybe 20 feet between them. 

“We made eye contact," Noonan said. " We both had an alarmed look on our faces.” 

Noonan said he saw Namkai-Meche walk across part of the train toward Christian, and he thought that was a bad idea. 

“He walked right past me,” Noonan said. " My instinct was to grab him to stop him, but I couldn’t.” 

Noonan said he didn’t think talking to Christian would be fruitful. " I’m not going to be able to convince Jeremy not to be racist in 15 minutes,” he said. 

Amee Pacheco testified that when Christian boarded the MAX, he sat next to her before moving a short while later.  When Christian started his tirade, she said she and many other commuters told him to “Shut up!” 

When the violence unfolded, Pacheco thought Christian was punching people.  A still frame from video aboard the train shows her grabbing Christian’s arm as he clutches the knife and swings. 

Pacheco didn’t realize Christian was in process of stabbing or had just stabbed his victims. “ It didn’t occur to me that (Christian) actually hurt anyone,” she said. “ I just underestimated the situation.” 

When she understood what had happened, she was scared, she said, and that feeling hasn’t left her in the more than 2 1/2 years that have passed. 

Amy Farrara, who was headed home from her downtown Portland job on the train, told jurors she recorded a short video of Christian yelling, then feared for her life even though she was a significant distance from Christian. 

“I stopped recording because I sunk down in the seat,” Farrara said. “ I thought a gun was going to go off.  I thought something was going to escalate.” 

Farrara said she saw the blood squirting against the train walls, and her first thought was it was raining inside the train or someone’s drink bottle had splattered against the walls.  Then she recognized what it really was. 

Jason Young, a Gresham officer assigned to TriMet transit police, was among the first officers to arrive at the Hollywood station after the stabbings.  Young said he and his partner originally received a call about someone yelling racist words and swearing on MAX and he thought “it was just another disturbance on the train.  We get a lot of those types of calls every day.” 

En route, Young learned that someone had been stabbed. 

Young said he encountered Namkai-Meche lying bleeding on the ground outside the train and a woman applying pressure to his neck.  Noonan was trying to hold Namkai-Meche down because he was moving a lot, Young said. 

Young cut off Namkai-Meche’s clothes and backpack to check his body for more wounds.  Young said he pulled out Namkai-Meche’s wallet and found his ID. 

“I wanted to call him by name essentially,” Young said. “ I called him by name and just said, ‘Hey, we’re trying to help you.’” 

Namkai-Meche wasn’t able to respond. 

The last witness of the day was Shawn Forde who stepped between Christian and Christian’s view of the teenage girls on the train.  At 6-foot-4 and just under 300 pounds at the time, Forde said he wanted to draw Christian’s attention to himself instead. 

Forde, who is African American, said he’s a father and he could see how frightened the teens were. 

He said Christian kept yelling and tried to bait him into a fight, but he knew better than to get into it with “some knucklehead.”  Forde said when Fletcher walked over and confronted Christian, he told Fletcher, “It’s all right.  He’s just talking now.  It’s cool.” 

Forde repeatedly pressed a button on the train car to alert the operator that help was needed, he said.  And when Christian told Forde he could say what he wanted because it was free speech, Forde responded: “You know what, you’re absolutely right.  You have freedom of speech and so does every other citizen.  I also have the freedom to ignore you.” 

Forde said everything rapidly deteriorated after Namkai-Meche walked over with his cellphone in hand -- another witness said Namkai-Meche held it up as if he were about to record Christian.  That’s when Christian threw Namkai-Meche’s phone to the floor, Fletcher started yelling at Christian, pushing ensued and Christian started stabbing, Forde said. 

Prosecutors have said Christian threw the first two shoves, and Fletcher responded with three shoves. 

Christian faces a total of 12 charges, including second-degree intimidation, a hate crime in Oregon, in the case. 

Testimony will continue Thursday.  The trial is expected to last up to five weeks. 

-- Aimee Green

agreen@oregonian.com

o_aimee

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