Prosecutor Claims Witness Urged Penn to Resist Arrest

Prosecutor Michael Carpenter on Wednesday accused a defense witness of challenging police authority and encouraging Sagon Penn to resist police attempts to arrest him moments before Penn shot to death one officer and wounded a civilian ride-along and another officer.

In the second day of Penn’s defense arguments, more witnesses testified that they heard two white officers use racial slurs as they attempted to arrest Penn, who is black. These witnesses corroborated the testimony of others who said that Penn was beaten with fists and batons by police agents Donovan Jacobs and Thomas Riggs.

Carpenter tried repeatedly to get Carlton Smith to admit that he interfered with the officers’ duty to arrest Penn. But at the end he succeeded only in getting the first of three rebuffs from Superior Court Judge Ben W. Hamrick, who told Carpenter that he was being argumentative with defense witnesses.

Carpenter hammered away at Smith, an athletic director at a local church, and suggested that he encouraged Penn to resist arrest by admonishing the officers for using “vicious” tactics on Penn. Finally, Carpenter asked: “You were questioning their authority, weren’t you?”

But Smith, who had just finished describing how Jacobs and Riggs had beaten Penn, answered with a question of his own: “Do they have the authority to beat people?”

A frustrated Carpenter looked up at Hamrick and asked him to order Smith to answer the question with a yes or no. But Hamrick, who had displayed annoyance at Carpenter’s persistent questioning, denied the request and warned Carpenter that he was being argumentative with Smith.

“You can draw your own inference (from Smith’s answer),” Hamrick said.

Minutes later, Carpenter got into another exchange with Smith that ended with another warning from Hamrick. The prosecutor tried unsuccessfully to get Smith to say that Riggs was concerned about a crowd that had gathered as police were trying to arrest Penn. Several times Carpenter asked Smith what Riggs was doing when Smith turned around and walked toward his house, moments before the first shots were fired.

“I don’t know what Officer Riggs was doing when I turned my back,” Smith said.

Carpenter responded with the same question, prompting Hamrick to say: “I think your questions are argumentative in this particular area.”

Carpenter accused Smith of refusing to give a statement about the incident to police investigators. But Smith denied that, saying he had objected to a police demand that his small children be interviewed outside his presence.

Police “just came in and took over the house. They cut the television off, told us not to talk to each other,” Smith said. “I’ve got small kids. They were frightened. I was just being protective of my family.”

Eventually police agreed to interview the children while Smith was present. On Tuesday, another defense witness testified that residents of black neighborhoods are routinely harassed by police.

On Wednesday, Carpenter began his questioning of Smith by referring to the other witness’s statement and asking: “Do you think they (police) were automatically going to hassle somebody at the time?” The prosecutor was referring to the moment when Jacobs and Riggs stopped Penn’s truck in an Encanto driveway on March 31, 1985.

“The only thing I could think is that these officers didn’t have any respect for the law,” Smith said. “I saw two officers beating a man who was trying to give himself up. I asked them if that’s how they got their stripes, by beating people.”

Then Carpenter asked Smith what he thought about police officers.

“Some seem to be harassive and some are nice,” Smith said. “We have a police officer on our coaching staff.”

Several witnesses testified that they saw Jacobs and Riggs beat Penn with their fists and batons, while shouting racial epithets. Smith’s 12-year-old daughter, Crystal, said that she heard the two officers call Penn “black racial names.”

According to the girl, Jacobs said, “You think you’re bad” and called him “nigger.” Then the girl spelled out obscenities she said she heard Jacobs use against Penn. She said that Riggs also called Penn “nigger.”

Crystal was also one of two witnesses who contradicted statements attributed to them in police reports. Carpenter quoted from a report that said Crystal told investigators that she saw Riggs hit Penn in the ribs. The report also said that the girl had seen Penn shoot both officers and the ride-along, Sarah Pina-Ruiz.

“No, because I didn’t see it,” the girl said sternly. “I didn’t tell him (the detective) that.”

When Carpenter attempted to question her about the difference between statements attributed to her in the report and her testimony, Hamrick cut him off with a warning that he was being argumentative.

Crystal also testified that she saw Jacobs unsnap his holster as he straddled Penn.

“I can remember that I saw that,” she said while demonstrating how the holster was unsnapped. She also testified that she saw a mortally wounded Riggs lying face up on the ground, moments after Penn took off in Jacobs’ car and before other police officers arrived.

Defense attorney Milton Silverman said that the girl erred, because Riggs was found lying face down by arriving officers, who turned him over to check for signs of life.

Carpenter sparked an angry response from Silverman when the prosecutor asked a police detective to comment on a tattoo on the web of Penn’s left hand. Detective Alfonso Salvatierra, who served six years on the department’s gang detail, had told Silverman that Penn and the other young men riding in his truck on the day of the shooting were not gang members.

Jacobs has testified that he decided to stop Penn’s truck because he suspected that it was carrying members of a local black gang, and police were looking for suspects in a gang-related shooting.

When it was Carpenter’s turn to question Salvatierra, he asked him to step down from the witness box and examine Penn’s left hand, which has a tattoo of a Playboy rabbit. Salvatierra said that the tattoo did not mean anything to him but that there is a local black gang called the Playboy Bunnies.

Salvatierra reminded Carpenter that Penn is not a known gang member and said that the tattoo could also mean that Penn is a “player,” one who has a way with women.

An angry Silverman jumped up and asked Salvatierra: “Well, is he or isn’t he?”

“To my knowledge he is not,” Salvatierra said.

Wednesday’s session ended with Bryan Ross on the stand. Ross, a friend of Penn’s, worked at a restaurant owned by Penn’s grandfather, Yusuf Abdullah. Soon after beginning his cross-examination, Carpenter asked Ross: “When you were in court here, did you smile at Mr. Penn?”

Ross, who appeared nervous throughout his testimony, answered no. Silverman leaned across the table when Carpenter asked the question, shook his head and grinned.

Ross’ testimony differed from other witnesses’, who said that the confrontation between Penn and the officers began when Penn refused to take his driver’s license out of his wallet when asked by Jacobs.

But Ross, who was riding in the cab on the passenger side when Penn’s truck was stopped, testified that he saw Penn take the license out of his wallet and hand it to Jacobs, who returned it to Penn. Ross also testified that he saw Jacobs place a handcuff on Penn’s right wrist while the two men struggled. Other witnesses testified that Jacobs tried unsuccessfully to handcuff Penn.

According to Ross, Penn reacted to Jacobs’ demand to see his driver’s license by asking why he was being stopped.

“Officer Jacobs asked, ‘Are you guys in any kind of gang?’ . . . Sagon asked Jacobs, ‘What seems to be the problem,’ ” Ross said. At that point, Jacobs asked for the license again, Ross said.

“Officer Jacobs said, ‘I’m going to ask you one more time, boy, where’s your driver’s license?’ It seems to me that he had a rough day, like he was in anger,” Ross said. “When he called him a boy, he (Penn) hesitated for a minute. Sagon told him that he was 23 years old.”

After that, Penn gave Jacobs the license and it was returned to Penn, Ross said. Penn then started walking away and Jacobs grabbed him by the arm. Penn pulled his arm back and walked away, turning his back on Jacobs, Ross testified. At that point, Jacobs struck Penn on the back and neck with his baton, Ross said.

“Sagon put his hands in the air and asked, ‘Why are you hitting me?’ ” Ross said. Then Riggs circled around Penn and began hitting him in the back with his baton, Ross added. Penn began backpedaling on the gravel driveway, as Jacobs and Riggs took turns swinging their batons at him, until he slipped; Penn landed on his back and Jacobs jumped on top, said Ross.

While Jacobs pummeled him with his fists, Riggs hit Penn on the head and neck with a baton, Ross said. Other witnesses testified that they saw Riggs swing both his and Jacobs’ batons, but Ross said he saw Riggs use only one to strike Penn. Jacobs and Riggs ordered Penn to turn over so Jacobs could handcuff him, but Ross said that Jacobs was also preventing Penn from turning over.

Ross said that at this point a crowd had gathered and was shouting at the officers to stop beating Penn. According to Ross, Riggs said: “ ‘If you guys will back up I’ll stop hitting him.’ We backed up and he proceeded to still hit Sagon on the head.”

Ross said that Riggs also kicked Penn, and it was after one of the kicks that the first shot was fired. Jacobs and Riggs fell in rapid succession, followed by Pina-Ruiz, who was shot while sitting in Riggs’ patrol car. After the shootings, Penn fled in Jacobs’ patrol car. Ross said that before Penn drove away he encouraged him to go to his grandfather’s home and turn himself in.

“I told Sagon to go to granddaddy’s and turn yourself in,” Ross said.

Penn’s grandfather eventually took him to the police station, where he surrendered.