True Crime in San Diego: Sagon Penn
by Larry Harmon



The case of Sagon Penn could best be described as Rodney King turned inside out.
On March 31, 1985, Penn, then 23, was driving a pick-up truck along 65th Street in Encanto, a predominantly black San Diego neighborhood. A few others, including Penn's brother, were sitting in the back of the truck. As they passed two police cruisers, officer Donovan Jacobs flipped a U-turn while radioing to the policeman in the other unit, officer Tom Riggs, "I'm going to stop that truckload of Crips."
The cops pulled Penn over. Officer Jacobs approached Penn, who stood outside the truck, from the driver's side as Officer Riggs stood on the passenger's side.
"What's up, Blood?" Jacobs asked before requesting Penn's license. Penn handed him his entire wallet. Officer Jacobs demanded that Penn take his license out of the wallet. Penn handed it back, asking what the problem was. Officer Jacobs then grabbed Penn, who tried to back away, and the two began to struggle. Officer Jacobs began to club Penn with his baton, but Penn managed to block most of the blows with his arms. Officer Riggs joined in and began to hit and kick Penn, and swung at the crowd to prevent them from closing in. Penn fell to the ground. Officer Jacobs was atop Penn's chest, punching him with his fists. Officer Riggs kicked Penn and clubbed him with his baton.
Penn somehow managed to grab Officer Jacobs' .38 and fired the first shot into Jacobs' neck. The crowd panicked, believing the cops had killed Penn. (In a taped 911 call, Penn's brother can be heard screaming, "They're shootin' my brother!")
The second shot ripped through the sole of one of Rigg's boots. The third hit Rigg's thigh, and the fourth hit his abdomen, severing his abdominal aorta. Penn jumped up and fired two more shots into Riggs' patrol car, wounding Sarah Pina-Ruiz, a civilian participating in a police ride-along. (It would come out later that Pina-Ruiz was a "police groupie," with hints of her having an affair with Riggs. Both of them were married.)
Penn then grabbed Riggs' gun and jumped in Jacobs' car. Penn had to maneuver the car around several obstacles to get away, during which he ran over Tom Riggs' corpse. Police sirens wailed through the Encanto neighborhood.
Approximately 30 minutes later, Penn turned himself in. With one cop dead, and another cop and a civilian wounded, the case instantly polarized San Diego. Either Penn was a vicious cop killer, or he was a victim of police brutality whose only means of survival was Officer Jacobs' firearm.
During Penn's first and subsequent trial, the public was reminded of everything evil in law enforcement. Following the shooting, the police set up "mini martial law" in the neighborhood, ordering people out of their homes. Police destroyed their notes from interviews with witnesses, paraphrasing their quotes, of which some later said they never told police what they put in their reports. In fact, the PD withheld evidence regarding Jacobs' attitude toward minorities until it was too late to present in court.
The evidence was a police academy transcript from 1978 documenting a "counseling session" after a class titled "Protecting Rights and Dignity." It was reported that Jacobs apparently felt it was all right to use "professional profanity" and derogatory slurs toward minorities. An academic supervisor warned Jacobs that "unless you show some considerable change or at least some more consideration for others and can change your behavior ... we don't want you because you are going to do nothing but create problems for yourself, for the public, and for the department."
Penn's lawyer argued that his client acted in self-defense, and it was the state's burden to prove otherwise. The jury acquitted Penn of the murder and voluntary manslaughter of Riggs and the assaults on Jacobs and Pina-Ruiz. In response, the district attorney filed different charges to kick off a second trial.
The second case had the same weaknesses as the first. The prosecution's main witnesses, Officer Jacobs and Pina-Ruiz, told conflicting stories and even contradicted themselves. Penn's attorney was also successful in demonstrating the police "code of silence" and in characterizing Officer Jacobs as a lying bigot.
On June 10, 1987, Sagon Penn again successfully avoided a guilty verdict. After deliberating for one month, the jury deemed Penn not guilty of voluntary manslaughter and deadlocked 11-1 in favor of acquittal for involuntary manslaughter in the death of Officer Riggs. Penn was found not guilty of attempted voluntary manslaughter for the shooting of Officer Jacobs. He was also found not guilty of attempted murder and attempted voluntary manslaughter of Pina-Ruiz. The jury either found him not guilty or deadlocked in favor of acquittal on the assault charges.
District Attorney Ed Miller quietly dropped the remaining charges against Penn, leaving him a free man.
But the case didn't disappear. After the trial, Judge J. Morgan Lester blasted the San Diego Police Department, saying that obvious excessive force was used and that police lied on the witness stand and tampered with evidence. Some of Penn's supporters claimed they were victims of police harassment, especially former cop Nathaniel Jordan, who testified that Officer Jacobs once called him a "nigger."
Michael Riggs, brother of Officer Tom Riggs, publicly blamed his brother's death on Officer Jacobs. The Riggs family had supported the prosecution's case and Officer Jacobs during both trials, but Michael's opinion was that Jacobs not only caused the death and used Officer Riggs as a scapegoat. In fact, Officer Jacobs had at first claimed that Officer Riggs began the fight with Penn, when actually Officer Jacobs had started it.
After the trial, Penn changed his name and went into relative seclusion, although he continued to live in the area. Penn had other run-ins with police following his acquittal.

first printed in Genetic Disorder po box 151362, San Diego CA 92175
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Reid Fleming / cDc / mmot / rfleming@crl.com