Police Shocked by Penn Acquittal; ‘We Are Open Game,’ Officer Says

To Norm Newton, a 14-year veteran with the San Diego Police Department, Thursday’s acquittal of Sagon Penn on charges of murdering a San Diego officer sent a chilling message to cops and crooks alike.

“A man kills one police officer, attempts to kill two other people, and then walks,” Newton said. “It doesn’t give the criminal or the potential criminal any sense of respect for the law or the officers who enforce it.”

Officer Wayne Starr saw the Penn verdict in even starker terms.

“I’m thoroughly disgusted,” Starr said. “It kind of puts into perspective society’s whole attitude toward the police, which is that we are open game.”

Newton, Starr and other San Diego officers, from Chief Bill Kolender on down, reacted Thursday with emotions ranging from icy professionalism to outrage when they learned that the man who killed Police Agent Thomas Riggs in March, 1985, had been found innocent of murder. Penn was also found innocent of the attempted murder of Police Agent Donovan Jacobs, who stopped Penn on a Southeast San Diego street March 31 in a confrontation that ended when Penn grabbed Jacobs’ gun and used it to shoot Jacobs, Riggs and Sarah Pina-Ruiz, a civilian riding with Riggs as an observer.

At the Southeast Division substation, where Riggs and Jacobs were based at the time of the shootings, about 20 officers gathered in the station’s lineup room at noon Thursday to watch on television as the verdicts were read.

There was silence in the room as it became clear that Penn had been found guilty of none of the charges against him. Some officers hung their heads. There was shock, amazement, said one who was there. Several got up and walked out. One officer crushed a paper coffee cup in his hand.

Lt. Cliff Resch, second-in-command at the station, said the verdict shocked his officers and left many of them questioning the judicial system they were hired to defend.

“Police officers look at juries as a reflection of the community,” Resch said. “They’re thinking, ‘Where’s my backing? What’s going to happen now if I get involved in a situation like this?’

“This hit home because it was not only a civilian involved but there were two police officers. It’s not like going out on the street and arresting a suspect for something, and then a jury cuts him loose. This was an acquaintance, an associate, a fellow police officer.”

Newton, who has applied for disability retirement because of job-related stress, said Thursday’s news “didn’t help me any.”

“There’s a feeling in your gut that you’ve lost confidence in the judicial system,” he said. “You’re putting your life on the line every day and a fellow officer is killed. . . . The feelings are that justice was not made. It makes you wonder why you should go on with the job.”

Officer Johnny Collins said he was sickened by the verdict.

“The fact that you can take someone’s life and nothing happens, I can’t believe it,” Collins said. “What are we doing all this for?”

Officer Jim Hergenroeather said he was shocked when he heard news of the verdict on the radio.

“I wasn’t ready for this,” he said. “I should have prepared. When I started hearing it on the radio, it was like a dream.

“There’s a cop dead. That’s the reality of it all. The cop’s got a wife and kids. And he’s dead. It’s sad. There just doesn’t seem to be any balance.”

Cynthia Wibe, the sister of Riggs’ widow, Colleen, said outside the courtroom Thursday that she was “amazed at the . . . breaks” given to the defense.

“It sounded like the jury did everything in its power to ensure that Mr. Penn be given the absolutely lightest sentence, if any sentence,” she said.

Several officers said they feared the Penn verdict would make them less effective on the streets.

“It’s really setting up something for the future,” Officer Charles Lewis said. “You’re going to have more paranoid police officers, more safety-conscious officers. . . . The public, they felt Penn was a martyr in some sense. If he can do it, why not them?”

Lewis said that, since the shootings, he has been involved in three incidents in which police officers’ guns were grabbed at by a suspect. “You’re really going to have to be on guard at all times,” he said.

To help his officers handle the verdict, Kolender prepared a two-minute videotape to be shown today at seven substations, the traffic division and detectives’ offices. All officers who work today, about 1,000, will see the tape and have a chance to discuss the verdict with their supervisors.

Resch, the Southeast San Diego lieutenant, said he spoke with a group of his officers just before the verdict was announced.

“I told them . . . every time you come in contact with a member of the public or the media, you are to act professional,” Resch said. “If the verdict goes in favor of Sagon Penn, nobody expects you to be happy, but we expect you to be professional and to come across as a professional police officer. Any flippant or unethical remarks are unwarranted.”

Resch said he doubted the verdict would cause his officers to question their tactics on the streets.

“There was more doubt right after the incident, and soul-searching, in that, ‘Do I really want to be an officer and take a chance of something like this happening to me and my family?’ ” Resch said. “I don’t think it’s going to happen as much now. They’re hurt, they’re upset, they’re disappointed now. But I don’t think they’re going to change their methods on the streets.”

Times staff writer Townsend Davis contributed to this story.