Local News in Brief : Transient Sentenced to 12 Years in Knife Attack on CHP Officer

A 33-year-old transient was sentenced to 12 years in state prison Thursday for stabbing a California Highway Patrol officer during a scuffle on the Hollywood Freeway.

Michael Prophet pleaded guilty July 15 to the attempted murder of CHP officer Raymond Cronin, who was wearing a bulletproof vest when Prophet stabbed him.

“Had the officer not been wearing a bulletproof vest, he would have died,” San Fernando Superior Court Judge Howard Schwab said as he sentenced Prophet.

The stabbing occurred July 1, 1988, when Cronin sighted Prophet walking north along the Hollywood Freeway near Lankershim Boulevard.

According to court documents, Cronin motioned for Prophet to walk on the freeway shoulder. Prophet refused and fought with the officer, who was stabbed once in the right shoulder and once in the back, according to a probation report.

Schwab said he gave Prophet the maximum prison sentence because of Prophet’s 1974 conviction for assaulting a police officer in Michigan. A psychiatric evaluation concluded that Prophet, a sometime janitor who had been homeless since 1984, “had the capacity to appreciate the wrongfulness of his behavior.”

Deputy Dist. Atty. Harold Lynn said Prophet was like “a time bomb” that would explode “as soon as he hits the streets again.”

However, Prophet’s attorney, Deputy Public Defender Daniel Blum, claimed his client suffered from psychological problems and that the incident on the freeway was “an indirect suicide attempt.”

“This obviously is not a criminal man, but a person with serious mental problems,” Blum said.