Racism, Brutality Alleged at Trial : San Diego Officer’s Accused Killer Was Beaten, Jury Told

SAN DIEGO — One by one, defense witnesses took the stand last week to testify that a young black man, accused of murdering one white policeman and wounding another as well as a ride-along housewife, was beaten and called “nigger” by the officers.

The defense witnesses for Sagon Penn, 24, took the stand after five weeks of testimony from prosecution witnesses, and their accounts of what happened that day differed sharply from the version given by the surviving police officer.

San Diego Police Agent Donovan Jacobs, 29--who stopped Penn’s pickup truck March 31, 1985, in the mistaken belief that Penn was a street gang member and who then got into a battle when the suspect refused to remove his driver’s license from his wallet--has insisted on the witness stand, “I do not use racial slurs.”

But defense attorney Milton Silverman contends that Jacobs is a racist with a penchant for keeping unauthorized files on suspected gang members and photographing them against their will. Silverman, who won access to Jacobs’ personnel file, cited other cases in which the officer had been accused of physically abusing people--primarily blacks.

Fellow Officer Killed

Killed in the fight that erupted late that day more than a year ago was Jacobs’ fellow officer, Thomas E. Riggs, 27, who was shot with a revolver wrested from Jacobs as the latter struggled on the ground with Penn.

Also wounded was Sarah Pina-Ruiz, 34, who was accompanying Riggs as part of the San Diego Police Department’s civilian ride-along program when Riggs went to the aid of Jacobs. She testified that after shooting the officers, Penn fired twice into the patrol car where she sat. One of the bullets entered her side and exited through her abdomen.

After firing all six rounds of the .38-caliber police revolver in less than six seconds, Penn jumped into the other police car and sped away, running over Jacobs. Penn turned himself into police a few minutes later.

Before winding up the prosecution’s case last week after calling more than 70 witnesses, Deputy Dist. Atty. Michael Carpenter played for the jury and Superior Court Judge Ben W. Hamrick a dramatic tape recording of the wounded passenger’s frantic plea over the police radio:

“We need help! We need help! Two officers down. I’m a ride-along and I’ve been shot . . . the officers . . . I can hear them moaning!”

Called to Testify

Carpenter also called Jacobs, who came to court with his disabled left arm in a sling, and who testified that he did not start the brawl. Jacobs said that he recalled seeing Riggs use his baton to ward off blows from martial arts enthusiast Penn. Only then, Jacobs said, did he run over and use his own baton to strike Penn in the back

Every other witness said Jacobs struck first.

Jacobs also contradicted the allegations that have heightened racial tensions and damaged police relations with San Diego’s black community, testifying that the word “nigger” is not in his vocabulary.

That, however, was not the way it was remembered by Silverman’s defense witnesses who began parading to the stand last Tuesday. Generally, they said both Jacobs and Riggs were using racial slurs as they struggled with Penn.

The first defense witness, a church choir leader named Cynthia Clantion, said she saw Jacobs and Riggs beating Penn unmercifully even though he was on the ground and trying to surrender.

Jacobs, according to Clantion, told Penn: “You think you’re bad. You think you’re bad, nigger. I’m going to beat your ass.”

Similar Statements Made

Other witnesses made similar statements. They included Demetria Shelby, a Sunday school teacher at Clantion’s church, who testified that she related all that to an investigating officer after the incident.

That officer’s report, presented in court, did not contain her comments. Several other witnesses testified that the versions they gave investigating officers after the incident were misrepresented in the reports brought to court.

Attempts by prosecutor Carpenter to establish that Jacobs had reason to believe Penn was a gang member did not sit well with Judge Hamrick. He ordered jurors to disregard a detective’s testimony that Penn had on his hand a small tattoo similar to one found on members of a street gang.

“You’re instructed that based on the evidence you would have to find that he is not a gang member,” the judge said unhappily. “You are to disregard totally the testimony . . . concerning the tattoo and its significance.”

It was, Hamrick said when the jury was out of the room, a “cheap shot” by the prosecution.

Carpenter has taken every opportunity to have the jury hear again how Penn seized Jacobs’ revolver and shot him in the neck; how Riggs never had a chance before he was killed with three shots. And he has played a videotape of paramedics struggling desperately to save Riggs’ life.

A doctor and a nurse also testified that based on their medical examinations, Penn was not a victim of a severe beating.

Silverman, who expects to spend three or four weeks refuting the prosecution’s case, has repeatedly gotten down on the courtroom floor, swinging a police night stick and throwing karate punches to illustrate what he says was a brutal attack by the officers on an unarmed, peace-loving civilian.

When he ordered Penn to stand trial, at the end of the preliminary hearing last fall, Municipal Judge J. Richard Haden called the case “truly a tragedy for all of San Diego.”