City Wants to Put Penn Case to Rest : ‘I hope people won’t continue to be divided over this.’ --County Supervisor Leon Williams

After two years, two trials and too much bitterness, it’s now time to stop and let people get on with their lives.

That was the reaction Thursday among most black leaders, city officials and Southeast San Diego residents to a jury’s acquittal of Sagon Penn on the most serious charges facing him.

“If you accept the system, you have to accept the judgment of the system,” said County Supervisor Leon Williams, whose district includes Southeast San Diego. “For a long time, people who found themselves on the other side have accepted it when the system seemed to them to be unfair.”

Williams, touching on a theme that ran through the comments of many blacks, said he is concerned about further divisiveness between whites and blacks as a result of the verdict. “I hope people won’t continue to be divided over this . . . people saying that justice wasn’t done, as I’ve heard today.”

Similarly worried is Willie Morrow, a businessman who owns a radio station, a cosmetics company and the San Diego Monitor and News, a black community newspaper. He said that unless the Penn case is put to rest, it will lead to needless and bitter racial tension.

“I think it’s detrimental to the community, both blacks and whites, to keep dragging this thing out,” he said, noting that the verdicts “restored the community’s confidence in the system . . . that it can work both ways.”

Morrow, as did several other people, said police attitudes toward the black community have changed as a result of the Penn case because it brought to light longstanding problems between blacks and police.

For the Rev. Robert Ard of Christ Church of San Diego and president of the Black Leadership Council, the acquittal brought him a “sense of relief and satisfaction. But really more than satisfaction, a feeling that justice itself has been vindicated.”

“I think this shows it doesn’t matter how unpopular or popular a person might be, no one is above or beneath the law,” said Ard, adding that two years ago, many people in the black community were highly cynical about the court system. It was difficult at times, he said, for him and others to tell fellow blacks to give the legal system a chance.

But now it should be over, Ard said, not just for Penn but for everybody.

Fruitless Pursuit

“We need to get this behind us as fast as we can. . . . Further pursuit of this matter would be fruitless,” said Ard.

In the two years since the shootings, Ard said, he believes several positive changes have occurred between the black community and police.

“We haven’t arrived yet, but we’ve come a long way,” he said, pointing to new and broadly expanded human relations training required of police, more effort on the part of blacks to report crime and help police identify drug pushers and--perhaps the most important and the most intangible--greater trust.

“It’s not us versus them anymore,” he said.

John Warren, editor and publisher of the San Diego Voice and Viewpoint, a black community newspaper, says he also has seen changes for the better, but he is still angered that Penn was subjected to a second trial.

He accused San Diego County Dist. Atty. Edwin Miller of being motivated by politics after the first trial and not listening to the minority community, which he said clamored against a second trial.

Miller Criticized

“The district attorney played politics instead of acting like a district attorney,” Warren said, criticizing Miller for “putting his finger in the air” to gauge which way the political winds were blowing.

“It was a misuse of his staff, and his decision was wrong, and the jury’s verdict validates that,” Warren said. “I’m hoping he won’t put people through this again.”

Thursday afternoon on Brooklyn Avenue--the dusty, rock-strewn dead-end street where police and Penn had their fateful confrontation in 1985--roosters crowed, jet planes on their way to Lindbergh Field roared overhead, and black, white and Latino children played on parched lawns on an overcast Thursday afternoon.

Schuntay Specks was 15 when the shootings occurred, a frightened teen-ager who saw the initial confrontation and then hid in a neighbor’s house when the shots were fired that killed a policeman, and severely wounded another officer and a civilian ride-along.

“I’m happy it’s mostly over. I think they’ve been dragging it on too long. . . . I think it should have been decided the first time,” Specks said as she stood at her front door, across the street from the site of the shootings.

Testified at Trial

Specks, 17 now and a senior at Gompers High School, testified at Penn’s first trial about what she saw. Her mother, Kaye, testified at both trials.

At an apartment house a few doors down, Demetria Shelby, 30, talked in measured tones about her feelings. Once before, a year ago when another jury had acquitted Penn on charges of murder and attempted murder, she had been more enthusiastic.

“I hope everything has been taken care of today. I feel everything should be dropped from now on, period,” said Shelby, another of several neighborhood residents who testified at both trials. “I think (Penn) had God as the judge, because good overcame evil.”

Shelby says she has noticed that police seem much nicer to people in her neighborhood and that people seem to have returned the feeling.

‘Good Cops, Bad Cops’

“There are good cops, and there are bad cops. I hope the bad ones are probably controlling what they are doing,” said Shelby. “I hope that they think twice because you never know who’s watching.”

Reaction from politicians emphasized the need to accept the jury’s verdict and for the city to move forward.

“As a former (police) officer, I have my own set of biases,” said Councilman Ed Struiksma. “But you have to place your faith in the jury system. They’re the people closest to the case and the evidence. You just have to accept and live with their verdict, and I’m willing to do that.”

Mayor Maureen O’Connor, noting that the trial had been “long and difficult for all of us,” said the “judicial system is based upon the integrity of the jury process. I urge all citizens to respect the jury’s verdict.”

Councilman William Jones, who represents Southeast San Diego, said, “Once again our judicial system has rendered a verdict on the Penn case, a case which has tarnished our city for the past two years. As Americans, we are fortunate to have a judicial system which allows for a thorough and exhaustive hearing, as was conducted in this case.

“I now believe that we must have the courage to put this tragic event behind us.”

Times staff writer Barry M. Horstman contributed to this report.