He fired a shotgun at Modesto police officers. He was found suitable for parole.
A man who fired a sawed-off shotgun at Modesto police officers while trying escape a foiled robbery nearly 23 years ago has been found suitable for parole.
A Stanislaus County jury in November 1997 found Phillip Wade Knight guilty of attempted murder, conspiracy to commit a robbery, assault with a gun on a police officer and being a felon in possession of a gun. A couple of months later, he was sentenced to 16 years to life in prison.
At a Feb. 13 hearing, a state parole panel found Knight, 67, of Modesto, suitable for release from prison, the Stanislaus County District Attorney’s Office announced in a news release Wednesday.
Deputy District Attorney Wendell Emerson attended the parole hearing and argued that Knight should remain in prison because he continued to pose an unreasonable risk to the public.
On Thursday, Knight remained incarcerated at Folsom State Prison. It’s uncertain when or if he will be released.
State parole officials have 120 days to review the decision. Then, the Governor’s Office will review Knight’s case and determine whether to uphold, overturn or modify the state parole board’s decision.
Modesto police shootout
Authorities have said Knight provoked a shootout with police in which he was critically injured shortly before 9 p.m. on March 29, 1996, near Century Center on East Orangeburg Avenue.
That night, employees from a nearby business reported seeing two men in some bushes putting on a fake beard and ski masks.
In the news release, prosecutors said Knight and his co-conspirators planned to rob a nearby business. They brought guns, disguises, rope and duct tape, so they could tie up store employees. The suspects apparently were preparing for the robbery and watching their target, according to prosecutors.
Officers Kevin Stensether and Larry Meyer, who had been conducting surveillance on city parks and looking for graffiti vandals, joined the search for the two men seen outside the shopping center. The officers were in street clothes and an unmarked police car.
Stensether and Meyer drove into an alley between Orangeburg and Nystrom avenues, spotted Matthew Dickason standing alone and detained him. Dickason was not charged in the shooting and later was convicted on unrelated burglary charges.
Modesto officer nearly hit
While the officers questioned Dickason, they spotted Knight hiding behind a garbage can about 10 feet away. He was holding a sawed-off shotgun and fired one blast at Stensether, according to a January 1998 news story published in The Bee.
Stensether has said that he felt the compression of the blast as the buckshot passed by his head. Both officers returned gunfire, wounding Knight as he ran south in the alley toward Nystrom.
Neither officer was struck by gunfire. Knight and Dickason were found in possession of a fake beard and a ski mask.
This story was originally published February 22, 2019 at 1:11 PM.