The fight in the Montbello High School cafeteria was brief and fatal, a Denver jury was told Wednesday.
And before he died, Montbello student Contrell Townsend looked at his close friend, Sedgrick Myles, and said, “He stabbed me.”
Myles was the key prosecution witness Wednesday, the opening day of the second-degree murder trial of Marcus Richardson, accused of stabbing Townsend to death Jan. 4, 2005.
Defense attorney Walter Gerash said the fight was instigated by Townsend and backed by several students associated with the Bloods street gang.
But prosecutors contend the fight was sparked by an earlier encounter when the students bumped into each other in the hallway.
Myles testified that on two occasions that day, Richardson, then 16, tried to start fights with the 17-year-old Townsend.
The first was stopped by the school principal before it started near the school tennis courts.
Minutes later, back in the school cafeteria, Richardson challenged Townsend a second time.
After wrestling briefly, Townsend pinned Richardson to a table.
“(Richardson) was getting rowdy like he was the big man on campus,” Myles said. “It (being pinned) took his self- esteem,” and that’s when the stabbing occurred.
During opening statements, prosecutor Adrienne Greene said that in a fight that lasted less than a minute, Richardson stabbed Townsend “not once, not twice, but three times.”
Richardson had followed Townsend into the cafeteria and hunted him down, carrying a knife that he had brought to school for months, Greene said.
“He picked the place, he picked the time, he picked the means,” Greene said of Richardson.
Gerash said his client acted in self- defense.
He said that Townsend, who wore red clothing and body markings showing an affiliation with the Bloods, confronted the slightly built Richardson in the cafeteria.
There, he repeatedly body-slammed Richardson while several Bloods members flashed gang signals and warned other students not to get involved.
Richardson, who had his shirt pulled over his face and couldn’t defend himself, was sure he was about to die, Gerash said.
As a result, he produced the knife to defend himself, Gerash said.
“This is a case of a gang-assisted attack on a frightened 16-year-old,” Gerash said. “He (Richardson) carried a knife but never used it until he was viciously attacked.”
Myles, who played football for two years at Montbello, testified that many football players were “associated” with the Bloods and that he was with team members on the day of the attack.
Myles admitted that the fight may have been “gang-related” but denied that Townsend was a gang member or that Bloods associates stopped other students from breaking up the fight.
Staff writer Howard Pankratz can be reached at 303-820-1939 or hpankratz@denverpost.com.
