Penn Defense Witnesses Attempt to Undermine Prosecution Case

Firing its final salvo in the trial of Sagon Penn, the defense Thursday summoned a string of witnesses in an attempt to discredit the principal prosecution witnesses to the killing of Police Agent Thomas Riggs and the shootings of Agent Donovan Jacobs and civilian ride-along Sarah Pina-Ruiz.

A former San Diego police lieutenant testified that he once watched Jacobs grab a black suspect by the neck and smash his head against a wall. He also testified that a check of Jacobs’ drug-arrest statistics showed that more than half the people Jacobs had arrested in one month proved to be clean.

A Navy housing officer testified that Pina-Ruiz told her less than a month after the shootings that she had been unable to see anything because “it all happened so fast.” Two weeks ago, Pina-Ruiz testified in detail that she had stared into Penn’s eyes, saw the barrel of the gun, and believed she would die.

And a former cook in a Denny’s restaurant who was pulled over on his motorcycle by Jacobs in 1982 testified that Jacobs shoved him up against an embankment, pulled out his night stick menacingly, addressed him as “little punk,” and threatened to “kick your ass up and down the street.”

The attitudes and behavior of Jacobs, who was injured in the March 31, 1985, shooting, have become a central issue in the trial of 24-year-old Penn. The defense contends that Penn grabbed Riggs’ gun and began firing in self-defense after Jacobs mistook Penn for a gang member, called him “nigger” and punched and hit him with his baton.

Penn is charged with one count of murder and three counts of attempted murder. The incident occurred after Jacobs stopped Penn’s pickup truck on a Southeast San Diego street and ordered Penn to remove his driver’s license from his wallet. When Penn refused, a fight broke out between Penn and the officers; Pina-Ruiz remained in a squad car nearby.

On Thursday, defense attorney Milton Silverman called a series of witnesses who he said would be his last, unless he decides over the weekend that Penn will testify.

Superior Court Judge Ben W. Hamrick adjourned the case until Monday, telling the jurors that he expects to complete the final, rebuttal, phase of testimony late next week.

Also testifying Thursday was Penn’s grandfather, Yusuf Abdullah, in whose Southeast San Diego home Penn was living at the time of his arrest. Abdullah testified about a conversation he had with Penn when Penn walked into the house immediately after the shootings.

“He looked like to me like he’d been run over . . . rolled over . . . or beat up,” Abdullah recalled. “ . . . He told me he just shot three policemen, and it wasn’t his fault. I said, ‘What you mean it wasn’t your fault?’ ”

Abdullah said Penn told him that the police had pulled him over and demanded to see his license. When Penn handed the officer his wallet but refused to remove his license, the officer punched him and the fight started, Abdullah said.

“It wasn’t his fault. The gun was cocked,” Abdullah said. He said Penn told him that, while he was holding the gun, one of the officers kicked it and it discharged, striking the other officer. “Then he had to shoot the other officer in self-defense,” Abdullah said.

That testimony supported Silverman’s contention that the first shot was accidental. Silverman has argued that Penn had grabbed the gun and was threatening the officers in self-defense, when Riggs kicked him and the gun fired.

Abdullah’s testimony was followed by that of Doyle Wheeler, a highly decorated lieutenant in the San Diego Police Department until he retired last year on a psychiatric disability. Wheeler, who acknowledged a dislike for Jacobs and bitterness toward the department, characterized Jacobs as a “hothead” with “problems of bias and racism.”

“I found him to be cocky and overly aggressive,” said Wheeler, who has moved to New Jersey. “And I felt that, having observed his conduct in dealing with some black suspects that he had in custody, that he used unnecessary force.”

Wheeler recalled seeing Jacobs in 1982 or 1983 smash a black suspect’s head against a wall in police headquarters. Wheeler said Jacobs had left the suspect in a corridor facing the wall, and then noticed that the man had turned his head.

“Jacobs grabbed him at the base of the neck and slammed his head against the wall and indicated he had told him to face the wall,” Wheeler said. “I told him to knock it off.”

Wheeler also said he once noticed that Jacobs had arrested an unusually large number of people on suspicion of heroin and PCP use. “The reports appeared to have been stamped out,” Wheeler said of Jacobs’ drug-arrest reports. “Everything read the same on nearly every report, with the exception of the name of the suspect and where he was arrested.”

So Wheeler said he selected 20 cases filed by Jacobs in a single month and asked the police lab for the results of the suspects’ blood and urine tests. In more than half the cases, the results were negative, Wheeler said.

He said 80% or 90% positive would be a more appropriate record.

During cross-examination, Deputy Dist. Atty. Michael Carpenter suggested that Wheeler’s testimony was motivated by a desire to damage the department, out of anger over the terms of his disability retirement, and a dispute over the department’s handling of the 1984 McDonald’s massacre in San Ysidro. Wheeler was the first officer to arrive at the scene of the massacre, and he says the experience contributed to his psychiatric problems.

“Isn’t it true that you hate everything about the San Diego Police Department?” Carpenter asked. “ . . . Isn’t it true that you will do anything and say anything to hurt the San Diego Police Department?”

Wheeler denied the charge.

Also testifying Thursday was a surprise witness, Carolyn Cherry, a Navy employee who said she discussed the shooting with Pina-Ruiz in April, 1985, when Pina-Ruiz came to Cherry’s office to be assigned government quarters. Pina-Ruiz’s husband is in the Navy.

“I asked, ‘Couldn’t you have ducked or run or tried to get away?’ ” Cherry recalled. “She said she couldn’t see anything, it all happened so fast.”

Earlier this month, Pina-Ruiz testified at length about the incident. Describing Penn’s handling of the gun before he shot Jacobs, she said: “He moved it several times upward . . . to the left side of the neck. . . . I saw the trigger going back. My eyes went right to the hammer. . . . I saw it go off, and I saw blood splatter back.”

Reading newspaper accounts of those statements, Cherry testified Thursday, “I was completely shocked. . . . When she spoke to me, her exact words were that it all happened so fast and she was unable to see anything.”

One other witness who testified to an encounter with Jacobs was Edward Serdi, who said he was riding his motorcycle to work in 1982 when Jacobs and another officer pulled him over after he shouted at them for cutting across his path at a turn.

Serdi said Jacobs called him “you little punk,” shoved him against an embankment, pulled out his night stick, and said, “Look up at me . . . and tell me what you said so I can kick your ass up and down the street.”

Serdi later filed a complaint against Jacobs, which was not sustained. Carpenter noted on cross-examination that an investigating officer’s written account of Serdi’s statement at the time does not include any reference to the night stick or the embankment.