One of the men shot dead on Bloody Sunday pleaded with people to back off from a confrontation with British troops earlier that day, the Saville Inquiry heard today.
John Young, 17, was seen urging the crowd back from Barrier 14 on Derry's William Street, which blocked the path of marchers on the civil rights demonstration on January 30th 1972, according to witness Mr Noel Doherty.
Mr Young was one of the 13 men shot and killed later that afternoon when Paratroopers opened fire inside the city's Bogside district.
Mr Doherty told the inquiry at the Guildhall, Derry: "There was a lot of talking and debating amongst the crowd at the barricade.
"Many of us were adamant that we would get through the barricade. At the time stewards were coming up to the barricade to try to persuade the crowd to go to Free Derry Corner for a meeting.
"I can recall seeing John Young pleading with people to go down to Free Derry Corner and to move back. John Young was killed later that day."
Mr Doherty, who was 16 on Bloody Sunday, later identified Mr Young from photographs taken roughly 10 minutes before the soldiers moved in.
Questioned by Edmund Lawson QC, acting for more than 400 of the soldiers, he maintained Mr Young had been trying to stop the trouble.
When Mr Lawson asked: "Having failed, he decided to join in?", Mr Doherty replied: "It looks like that, yeah."
Mr Doherty also told day 82 of the inquiry's public hearings of bullets whizzing over his head as he tended to the dying Jackie Duddy, 17 - the first to be killed that day - who was later carried through the Bogside with the then Fr Edward Daly in front waving a white handkerchief.
He said he saw a soldier open fire "in a diagonal line" across the car park of the Rossville Flats as the crowd ran from advancing soldiers, heard five or six shots go past him and saw that the teenager had fallen.
"Eventually, along with three or four other men, crouching down with my hands in the air, I made my way over to the boy who has fallen," he said.
"While kneeling at his side I saw the same soldier open fire once more. I saw his rifle jerk and about five or six shots rang out which I felt were aimed me as the bullets whizzed over my head.
PA