Penn Convicted on One Count as Jury Returns Partial Verdict

In a partial verdict returned Tuesday, Sagon Penn was convicted of assault with a deadly weapon for driving a patrol car over San Diego Police Agent Donovan Jacobs. The offense carries a minimum five-year prison term.

The jury, deliberating after a three-month trial, returned the verdict on one of six criminal charges because a juror went to the hospital Monday night to deliver a baby boy. Superior Court Judge Ben W. Hamrick suspended deliberations until next Tuesday, when juror Vernell Hardy is expected to return to the jury. Hamrick ordered the single verdict unsealed so the jury wouldn’t have to restart deliberations if an alternate juror has to replace Hardy.

The jurors had reached the verdict on one of three attempted murder charges against Penn on Friday, their second day of deliberations, but the decision was not announced until Tuesday.

In rejecting the charges of attempted murder and attempted voluntary manslaughter, the jury concluded that Penn did not have a specific intent to kill Jacobs with the car. But Penn was declared guilty of the lesser charge of assault with a deadly weapon, a felony that carries a prison sentence of two to four years. The jury also found that Penn intended to inflict “great bodily harm” when he ran over Jacobs, which automatically adds three years to his prison term.

Jacobs was pleased by the verdict. “I think it’s great,” said Jacobs, who was shot in the neck by Penn before being run over. “Convict him on all of ‘em!”

Both defense attorney Milton Silverman and Deputy Dist. Atty. Michael Carpenter declined to comment on the verdict.

The verdict was seen as a severe blow to the defense, which had hoped that Penn would be acquitted on all counts.

Penn is charged with murder in the March 31, 1985, fatal shooting of Police Agent Thomas Riggs and attempted murder in the shootings of Jacobs and Sarah Pina-Ruiz, a civilian who accompanied Riggs in his patrol car. He also faces charges of auto theft and grand theft for fleeing with Jacobs’ car and Riggs’ revolver.

Penn, 24, displayed no emotion as Court Clerk LaRue Slaugh read the verdict. Dressed in the blue polyester suit he wore throughout the trial, Penn said nothing after the verdict, Silverman said.

Penn’s father, Thomas Penn, said he couldn’t believe the verdict when he heard it Tuesday morning on his car radio.

“I really haven’t gathered my thoughts together,” Thomas Penn said. “I can’t say I’m disappointed. I can’t say I’m happy. Right now I can’t believe it.

“I have faith in the system. What caused it to happen is what I’m looking at. I just hope he gets justice. . . . I don’t think the kid went out there with the intention to do murder.”

Penn was returning from a Sunday afternoon at Balboa Park in his grandfather’s white pickup truck when he was pulled over by Jacobs, who was looking for a black gang member with a gun. An altercation ensued over Penn’s refusal to take his driver’s license out of his wallet and hand it to Jacobs.

Numerous witnesses testified that the officers used night sticks to repeatedly beat Penn, who is black and does not belong to a gang, and that Jacobs told Penn: “You think you’re bad, nigger . . . I’ll beat your black ass.”

Jacobs, who denied ever using the word “nigger,” testified that he followed proper police procedure in trying to apprehend Penn.

Penn grabbed Jacobs’ service revolver as the officer sat on top of him and shot Jacobs once in the neck. He turned and fired at Riggs three times, killing him with the third shot, and then stood and shot Pina-Ruiz twice through the driver’s side window of Riggs’ car.

All six shots were fired in less than six seconds.

After the shootings, Penn picked up Riggs’ weapon. When he realized that he could not back his pickup out of the driveway, Penn drove from the Southeast San Diego neighborhood of Encanto in Jacobs’ car. On the way out, he drove over the wounded Jacobs, who was sprawled on the dirt driveway.

The defense contended that Penn, who could hear approaching police sirens, had no way of fleeing other than to drive the police car out of the driveway. Silverman said that Penn was careful not to drive over Jacobs with the tires of the vehicle.

The prosecution argued during closing arguments that Penn intended to kill Jacobs when he drove the police car over him. Carpenter said Jacobs was trying to get up as Penn hit him.

“There’s been evidence to indicate that (Penn) speeded up when he hit him,” Carpenter said. “ . . . He realized he had not done the job properly and he wanted to finish him off.”

Jacobs, 29, recalled the moment when Penn ran over him.

“I remember looking up and seeing the undercarriage of the car,” Jacobs said. “I remember thinking, ‘I just got run over.’ It was the first time I felt any pain. I felt my chest crushed.”

Jacobs, whose left arm is paralyzed from the shootings and is currently assigned to light-duty police work, said he will not be completely satisfied until verdicts are reached on all the charges.

“The guy ran me over,” Jacobs said in a telephone interview Tuesday. “What defense is there to that? I feel vindicated to some degree. I’m waiting for all of (the verdicts) to come back guilty.”