According to the Portland Police Bureau, the incident began with a fight near the Providence Park MAX Station at Southwest 18th Avenue and Southwest Morrison Street sometime after 6 p.m. on Christmas Eve.
Bradley W. Parks / OPB
Portland police have arrested a man accused of fatally stabbing someone during a fight Sunday evening near a MAX station in Southwest Portland’s Goose Hollow neighborhood.
The suspect, 22-year-old Edel Cruz-Aragon, was booked into the Multnomah County Jail on Tuesday. He is charged with murder in the second degree and unlawful use of a weapon.
According to the Portland Police Bureau, the incident began with a fight near the Providence Park MAX Station at Southwest 18th Avenue and Southwest Morrison Street sometime after 6 p.m. on Christmas Eve. That’s when Cruz-Aragon allegedly stabbed 23-year-old Juan Francisco Orellana-Gavarrete. Orellana-Gavarrete boarded a southbound MAX train shortly after he was stabbed.
The TriMet employee operating the MAX train only learned about the stabbing when a TriMet dispatcher told him to stop the train at the next stop, the Goose Hollow MAX platform. A recording of the MAX radio dispatch traffic at the time captures the conversation.
“Do you have any passenger emergencies?” the dispatcher asked the operator at 6:30 p.m.
“No, there was a couple of guys mixing it up on the platform back at Providence Park but that issue was resolved, I guess,” the operator replied. He later informed the dispatcher that police had arrived at the train.
Orellana-Gavarrete died after being transported to a hospital. Cruz-Aragon fled the scene before police arrived, they said. Portland officers arrested him on Tuesday, after detectives identified him as a potential suspect.
TriMet has increased its security staff in recent months, following a September attack on a MAX train in Southeast Portland.
There were no TriMet security staff present Sunday evening at the Providence Park MAX station or on the train that Orellana-Gavarrete boarded, according to TriMet spokesperson Tia York.
“However, they were able to respond quickly to Goose Hollow after learning of the incident and provide assistance to riders while first responders tended to the victim,” York said.
The incident and subsequent criminal investigation halted MAX trains for five hours.