Oxnard resident arrested after man stabbed on train
Suspect attacked stranger, jumped off Coast Starlight, authorities say
Armando Avalos, 48, broke his ankle and was arrested by Siskiyou County sheriff's deputies who found him huddling over a fire in the 35-degree air, said sheriff's spokeswoman Susan Gravenkamp in Yreka.
After Avalos was treated for the broken ankle at a Yreka hospital, he allegedly threw a cup of urine at a sheriff's deputy and, as a result, Avalos will be charged with assault on a police officer in addition to the attempted murder charge and a parole violation charge.
The victim, Rodolfo Marroquin, is a resident of Visalia, in central California. He was treated for four knife punctures in his back, one of which nearly punctured his lung, officials said. After treatment, he was released.
Marroquin told deputies he boarded the Los Angeles-bound Amtrak train at Eugene, Ore., on Friday night and sat next to Avalos.
"He noticed that the suspect was nervous, pacing and walking up and down the stairs, and the victim changed seats while the suspect was downstairs," Gravenkamp said.
After dozing off, Marroquin awoke while being stabbed in the back.
Then, Avalos allegedly ran to a door and jumped from the train as it was moving at about 40 mph through mountains between Klamath Falls and Dunsmuir.
Marroquin pulled the emergency stop lever, and conductors summoned deputies as Amtrak engineers backed up about 1.5 miles to a Klamath Falls National Forest campground, where paramedics could reach it.
As Marroquin was rushed 40 miles to a Klamath Falls hospital, three deputies with a search dog searched the train cars and found Avalos' ticket, which showed he was riding from Vancouver, Wash., to Oxnard. Gravenkamp said they also found a loaded handgun, ammunition, a digital scale and marijuana in the backpack that Avalos left on the train, but did not find the stabbing weapon.
"Deputies are familiar with the area, and they concentrated on looking along the tracks," the spokeswoman said. As they walked along the tracks, they heard a cough, spotted a bonfire and confronted the suspect.
Avalos told deputies he had broken his ankle, and he was operated on at Fairchild Medical Center in Yreka, then transferred to jail on Monday.
He was booked into Siskiyou County Jail with no bail possible on suspicion of attempted murder, violation of parole, and manufacture or possession of a dangerous weapon.
Amtrak spokeswoman Vernae Graham near San Francisco said assaults like this on Amtrak trains "are very unusual" and that passengers' baggage is searched on a random basis at train stations, and onboard the trains, nationwide.
Service on the Coast Starlight between Oregon and California resumed May 7 after a five-month suspension because of a massive rock slide that damaged the tracks in southern Oregon, Graham said. The daily trains originate in Seattle and Los Angeles and make 25 stops, including in Oxnard and Simi Valley.
