Penn Lawyer Says Officer Hurt Others

Exactly one year after Sagon Penn fatally shot one San Diego police officer and injured another, a Superior Court judge ruled Monday that allegations of the surviving officer’s racial bias and excessive force in previous incidents may be heard during the trial.

To illustrate Agent Donovan Jacobs’ “Doberman pinscher” style of law enforcement, defense attorney Milton Silverman cited recent cases in which Jacobs is accused of physically abusing people.

In one case, according to Silverman, Jacobs kicked down the door of a black man and poked him in the stomach with a night stick. In another incident, Silverman said, Jacobs smashed the face of a black man against a wall while he was under arrest at police headquarters.

Judge Ben Hamrick said it would be an abuse of discretion on his part if he barred testimony concerning the encounters. Hamrick told Silverman to select only two or three complaints of excessive force lodged against Jacobs within the last three years. Some of the information was gathered by the defense after obtaining access to Jacobs’ personnel file.

Silverman will have to consult Hamrick again before witnesses who have specific complaints against Jacobs are allowed to testify before the jury, the judge decided. Monday’s motions regarding the complaints were heard away from the jury.

Hamrick also ruled that Silverman may introduce evidence of an immunity pledge that Jacobs received from police detectives before he agreed to be interviewed last April. Police guaranteed that none of the statements Jacobs made during a series of three interviews could be used against him in court.

Penn is on trial for murder in the March 31, 1985, shooting death of Agent Thomas Riggs and for attempted murder for wounding Jacobs and Sara Pina-Ruiz, a civilian who was a passenger with Riggs that night.

Prosecutor Michael Carpenter said in court Monday that he expects to call Jacobs and Pina-Ruiz to testify later this week or early next week.

During preliminary hearings, defense witnesses testified that Jacobs provoked Penn before the shootings by hurling racial slurs and beating him repeatedly with a night stick.

Silverman indicated Monday that he would be calling an out-of-state witness to testify that he saw Jacobs wear a shirt bearing a Nazi swastika. Jacobs has denied wearing such an emblem.

On Monday, coroner’s pathologist David Katsuyama testified that if Penn used martial arts techniques to block repeated blows with police batons, he would not have suffered serious bruises to his arms.

Silverman videotaped a segment over the weekend of Penn’s karate instructor, David Wilson, using his arms to block overhead swings of the baton by the defense attorney. The film clip was shown to Katsuyama and the jury Monday to illustrate how martial arts tactics can reduce injuries from severe blows by a night stick.

The only other witness on Monday estimated that Penn drove a police vehicle at 15 to 18 m.p.h. when he ran over Jacobs as he left the Southeast San Diego driveway where the shootings took place.

David Parker, a county traffic safety investigator, said it was unlikely that Penn could have fled the scene without driving over Jacobs, who was sprawled in the driveway with a gunshot wound to the neck.