Make New York Post a Preferred Source An elderly train passenger has been cleared of attempted murder for shooting a crazed homeless flasher who exposed himself and threatened to rape his partner in Oregon.
Michael Grover Phill, 71, argued that he acted in self-defense when he shot 40-year-old Lance Hicks after he threatened him and his legally blind partner on the MAX train in North Portland, the Oregonian reported.
Hicks, who has a history of mental illness, boarded the train and approached Phill and his partner while exposing himself and making threats.
“All of the crotch of his pants is cut out, and his penis is in his hand, and he’s snarling,” Phill told the judge at Multnomah County Circuit Court in Portland earlier this month.
The gun Michael Grover Phill used to shoot Lance Hicks, a crazed homeless man who threatened him and his partner. City of Portland Hicks also threatened to rob Phill and sexually assault his partner during the terrifying experience in the early hours of Jan. 30.
The couple got up to leave, but Hicks continued to advance toward them, at which point Phill pulled his handgun from his jacket, shot the crazed homeless man once in the thigh, and fled.
Phill said he shouted, “Do not run up on me!” at Hicks, who kept coming toward him, before he opened fire.
The shooting happened late at night on a MAX Train in North Portland, Oregon, in January this year. Wikipedia/Pi.1415926535 “I’m sorry to say that I had to [shoot him]. I didn’t want to,” Phill told his defense attorney, Henry Oostrom-Shah.
Phill was charged with attempted murder, assault, and unlawful use of a weapon, as well as with being a felon in possession of a firearm, and could have faced around 10 years in prison.
But the jury refused to find him guilty of the shooting, although he was convicted of the firearm possession charges.
Phill was sentenced to roughly two years in prison during a hearing last week, despite Oostrom-Shah asking that he receive only probation, with no jail or prison given his age, poor health, and the decade since his last felony conviction.
“I can’t and won’t punish him for the actual shooting. But I do believe that simply having the gun in his possession … may have emboldened him to do things that a reasonable person wouldn’t have done otherwise,” Judge Eric Dahlin said in sentencing Phill.
Phill, who wears an eyepatch because he has glaucoma and a cataract, told the judge during his trial that he shot Hicks to protect his partner, who is under 5 feet, weighs less than 100 pounds, and is legally blind due to losing her peripheral vision.
He told the judge he carries a gun after being attacked before, including three times in Portland during his 50 years in the city, and once in California, when a man hit him in the head with an empty 40-ounce beer bottle.
“On the transportation system, you know it seems you run into all types of crazy people,” Phill said.
After the shooting, Phill said he threw the gun in some bushes and took off his coat to avoid detection, but was spotted by a Portland police officer and later arrested.
Phill said that due to previous convictions, he didn’t want to either get himself in trouble or get Hicks in trouble.
“I ain’t no rat, you know. So I was just trying to get away from him,” he said, adding that he was frightened.
“Black men accused of shooting in Portland late at night? I’ve had my difficulties, you know my past with the law, so it wasn’t going to be good,” Phill told the judge.
Carrying a gun is forbidden onboard TriMet trains.
“This shooting on TriMet never would have happened had Mr. Phill not possessed a firearm,” Deputy District Attorney Branden Meadows said in a statement.
“Perhaps he would have made better choices that evening,” he added, noting that Phill could have alerted security officers who had been on board the train, or pressed the call button.
Hicks wasn’t charged with any crimes, including indecent exposure, by prosecutors over his actions that night.
His apparent mental health problems would have made it difficult to prove he intended to expose his genitals on the train that night, Meadows said.
In 2023, Hicks was convicted of public indecency on a MAX train in Hillsboro after the operator said he saw Hicks expose himself and masturbate.
Hicks was not able to give police an interview due to what cops called his confused mental state, and he did not testify at trial or attend last week’s sentencing hearing.
