Reap the Whirlwind, page 41
Silverman said he hoped that as a result of the trial, the belief among those in the Black community that they “will get chewed up and spit out by the system has changed.” Some thought it was a little premature to believe much had changed in a justice system they felt seldom worked for Blacks. “We thought the boy was already in the electric chair, so it was astonishing for us to see Penn receive a fair trial,” said Hartwell Ragsdale, a prominent Southeast business owner. “It’s something I’ve never seen in America before in my life.”
THE DAY AFTER the verdicts, police chief Bill Kolender attended the weekly lunch meeting of the Catfish Club, a loose-knit group of Black civic and business leaders working to better life in the Southeast. Prominent community members had directed some harsh words about Kolender over the previous two and a half years, some calling for his resignation. “I should have followed my father into the jewelry business,” he joked dryly of the experience.
Kolender had come to the Catfish Club to listen, but in brief remarks he struck an optimistic tone. “The case has created some very serious strains between the police department and particularly the minority community,” he told the group. “I think we have all learned from what has happened. At this point things are looking up.”
Just prior to Kolender’s visit to the Catfish Club, it was announced that there would be no retrial of Sagon Penn. “We’ve been through two years of this,” District Attorney Ed Miller said. “I think it would be wise at this point on our part not to go forward for a third time.” Kolender’s message to the city was that it was time to move on. “We want it over,” he said. “We want to move forward.” Editorials and letters to the editors in The San Diego Union conveyed a similar message. Everybody seemed ready to move on. But there was one person in the city who was not quite ready to do that.
“THE ZEAL TO get Mr. Penn at all costs caused major problems and they came back and haunted the prosecution and the police department repeatedly in the trial,” Judge J. Morgan Lester said. “It is something absolutely new and was flabbergasting to me. I’ve been in the legal business twenty-one years, and I have never seen a case where this type of thing was going on.” Lester was not making the comments in a private conversation; he was speaking on the record to Los Angeles Times reporter Glenn Bunting four days after the verdicts in the trial. He was troubled by Chief Bill Kolender’s statement that there was no evidence of misconduct on the part of Jacobs. “There’s too many witnesses for the department to ignore the reality of what was going on,” Lester said. “To get an officer so carried away in beating someone that they don’t even know their gun is being tugged at or taken away proves that the jury believed there is a real beating going on here.” Jacobs was responsible for escalating the situation into violence by demanding that his “authority win at all cost when it wouldn’t have mattered whether the license was out of the wallet or not.” The officers chose to engage in a violent confrontation “when nothing is going to happen except caving someone’s head in.” Judge Lester referred to their actions as “nightstick justice.”
“The code of silence that was brought out by the defense was preeminent in the minds of several officers,” he said of police personnel who he believed lied, claimed amnesia, or withheld information while on the stand. “I see too much ingrown loyalty that came forth in this case for an objective presentation, and I think the department looked very embarrassed at times.” He said the academy transcript “was purposely withheld” and the police should “stop hiding and stuffing exhibits in desk drawers that bear on an important case.”
He criticized the attitude of police and even segments of the public toward the case. “I have run into people who want to make the conclusion that there is a dead officer and someone has to pay. They are almost happy to be ignorant of the real details and what was going on.” Lester then emphasized, “The concerns I’ve voiced are from one who sat through the trial on a completely impartial basis.”
For a sitting judge to offer such posttrial criticism was unheard of, and Lester’s comments shook the city. The morning the article appeared on July 20, Norm Stamper found Kolender fuming in his office, a copy of the Los Angeles Times on his desk. After enduring one of the chief’s prodigious outbursts of profanity, Stamper read through his proposed press release. In it, Kolender and DA Ed Miller announced they were requesting that California Attorney General John Van de Kamp conduct a full investigation into the judge’s allegations of misconduct by members of the San Diego Police Department. “What else can we do?” the chief said to Stamper. Despite Stamper’s urging, Kolender refused to remove criticism of the judge. “Judge Lester’s comments, whatever motivations may underlie them, are inappropriate, irresponsible, and disregard the best interest of the community.”
“I am further personally convinced that nothing at all would have been done if some of my comments had not been made public,” Lester said in response to Kolender’s remarks.
Several jurors reluctant to voice these same concerns now spoke up. “I think his observations are absolutely accurate,” Debbie Trujillo said of Lester’s remarks. “I support the judge and his statement,” said John Vickery. “I think there were police officers who lied. Their goal while testifying was to observe the code of silence and not let the truth be known.” Jury foreman Howard McDowell said, “They weren’t interested in the truth.” Jurors named several police witnesses they believed had lied under oath, including Jenny Castro and William Mahue, who conducted the Edward Serdi stop. They were virtually unanimous in their negative appraisal of Sergeant James Duncan. “He’s a very scary man,” Trujillo said. Another referred to Duncan as “a weasel.” The other individual singled out was Donovan Jacobs. “There was definitely some excessive force used that night,” Trujillo said. “I don’t think we ever got the truth out of Jacobs,” one felt. “If it hadn’t been for Jacobs, none of this would have happened,” said another.
THE CRITICISM, RAGE, and even threats directed at Michael Tuck for over two years for his position on the Sagon Penn story had taken their toll on the Channel 10 news anchorman. During the trials, the Penn case had often been the subject of several of his “Perspective” segments a week. They were frequently critical of Kolender, the police department, the attorney general, Ed Miller, and The San Diego Union editorial staff. The day after Judge Lester’s comments, Tuck took aim at his detractors in one of his final “Perspective” pieces on the Sagon Penn story.
“It seemed like a rather curious but convenient turn of events to me how so many of the very people who were screaming for Sagon Penn’s scalp for two years were suddenly so eager to, quote, ‘put the whole thing behind us,’ once the facts were out and the verdict was in,” he said, standing in front of a desk in shirtsleeves and tie.
“You see, some of those facts had been disturbing. It said something that two juries had concluded Penn was the victim of a brutal beating, so brutal he was justified in defending himself with the shooting which followed. If that was true, and that’s what the juries which heard all the evidence concluded, then there must be something wrong in a police department which allows a hothead like Agent Donovan Jacobs in a sensitive job. Or, one so concerned with its own image it would apparently alter evidence and would send cops to the witness stand to tell what many jurors thought were pure lies. All of it to get Sagon Penn.
“Well, it all began to come unraveled. It became painfully obvious this police department has serious problems. So obvious, in fact, some of the jurors refused to speak out after the trial for fear, they said, that police might retaliate against them. Despite those problems, though, everybody, from the police chief to the editorial writers for The Union to civic leaders, were saying it was time to, quote, ‘put this whole thing behind us.’ Which to me is just another way of saying, ‘Let’s sweep the whole thing under the rug.’
“And that’s what would have happened had it not been for Judge J. Morgan Lester. Judges have their own little ‘code of silence.’ So, when Lester spoke out as strongly as he did, it may have been about the most gutsy move that courthouse has ever seen. No, Judge Morgan Lester does not need to be investigated. He ought to be applauded. Nor is it time yet to, quote, ‘put this whole thing behind us.’ Not till we’ve figured out some way to make sure it never happens again.
“I’m Michael Tuck, and that’s my perspective.”
The formal request to the Office of the Attorney General of California—the agency empowered with the ultimate authority to investigate and prosecute law enforcement agencies and personnel within the state—came from DA Ed Miller. It said Lester’s accusations “raised the specter of perjury by law enforcement officers” and the possibility both officers involved in the altercation had engaged in “the grossest form of police brutality.”
The man heading the investigation, Deputy Attorney General Bob Foster, was careful to point out that the objective of the investigation was limited to determining whether sufficient evidence existed to pursue criminal prosecution. “It’s going to take a long time,” he cautioned. Within days, agents at the San Diego field office of the FBI launched an investigation into possible civil rights violations by the San Diego Police Department against Sagon Penn. In a communication to the attention of the FBI director, the investigation was designated a “significant case” due to “wide media coverage; much community controversy.”
ON THURSDAY NIGHT, July 23, exactly one week after the verdicts, Donovan Jacobs was at Diego’s nightclub in Pacific Beach with seventeen of his fellow police officers and about two hundred women very excited to meet them. Most of the cops were in tuxedos, and the women were lined up five deep to get their “1988 San Diego’s Finest” beefcake calendars autographed by this year’s pinup boys. “I’ve always tried to avoid policemen,” a giddy thirty-three-year-old hairdresser told a reporter, “but they look pretty good out of uniform.”
Jacobs appeared relaxed and in good spirits. He had sold five thousand copies of the 1986 edition at nine dollars a copy and hoped to sell at least that many this year. Part of the profits were earmarked for the Police Memorial Scholarship Fund in the name of Thomas Riggs. He answered a few questions about his future on the San Diego Police force. “If I don’t feel I’m adequately contributing to law enforcement or if I get bored with what I’m doing, I’ll leave,” he said. “But right now I plan on staying with the department and continue doing some private enterprise work.”
Jacobs had returned to limited duty before the end of 1985 as a fitness trainer and teacher at the academy. He transitioned to full-time and was enjoying the work. Jacobs claimed Norm Stamper told him in June 1986 they did not want him there anymore. “He said it didn’t look good to the recruits,” in reference to his partially paralyzed left arm. “He didn’t want the recruits being influenced by the fact that they could be shot and disabled, and he didn’t want them to see the black side of police work.”
Jacobs was moved to a desk job in the Narcotics investigation unit and received glowing performance evaluations and a special commendation for helping to break up a cocaine ring, resulting in seventeen federal indictments. He was making $36,000 a year with benefits plus a little extra beefcake money on the side. And then Norm Stamper showed up again around Thanksgiving 1987, this time to inform him he was going to be medically retired on 50 percent annual salary for life due to his injuries.
Jacobs resisted the move. “Why are they making such an effort to get rid of me?” he said. “Maybe it’s [because] when anything controversial has come up, somebody drops my name. They feel that it comes back on them.”
Jacobs was correct. The deputy chief was still on the front lines of repairing divisions with an angry Southeast community outraged at Jacobs’s continued presence on the force. Publicly, Chief Kolender stood firmly behind Jacobs, but privately, he and Stamper felt Jacobs had brought all of this down on the department by making a bad stop and then letting it get out of hand.
“That is absolutely ridiculous,” Kolender responded to the suggestion that the move to retire Jacobs was unrelated to his injuries. “The man can’t be a police officer. I’m sorry to say that.” This time, Jacobs retained an attorney to fight the move.
Six weeks after the end of the trial, the first public rift in the Riggs family’s opinion of Donovan Jacobs surfaced in an article in the Los Angeles Times. “My personal opinion is that [Jacobs] killed him, not Penn,” twenty-five-year-old Michael Riggs said of his older brother’s death. “I would like to see him drummed off the face of the department.” Riggs’s distrust began shortly after the incident when he learned of Jacobs’s statements to Detective Manis at Mercy Hospital. “The first thing he did was blame my brother. It was the first thing that came out of his mouth, but they couldn’t get any of the witnesses to back that up.” He accused the police department of knowing about Jacobs’s reputation. “They must have all the scuttlebutt on him,” he said. “I know that my brother didn’t speak very highly of [Jacobs]. He was not thrilled about the fact that they were going to have to work together because of the areas they were working in, and his attitude.”
EVERYONE IN SAGON Penn’s life warned him that despite the not-guilty verdicts, he could no longer stay in San Diego. “He’s got to realize that he can be nothing in this town now,” Thomas Penn said. “Although he is a free man after two trials in the case, Sagon Penn cannot stay in this, his hometown,” wrote longtime Tribune columnist Ozzie Roberts. But no one tried harder to convince Penn than his former attorney. “I told him his life was in danger if he stayed,” Milt Silverman related. “I knew the type of people we were dealing with,” he said, referring to members of the police force. Milt and Maria went to Penn’s family members: “We begged them to send him to a relative in some far-away state.” Sagon Penn’s answer to all of them was the same: “Where am I gonna go?”
Penn had another reason to stay. Donna Parks was in her early twenties and working as an operator for a telephone company when she came into contact with Sagon Penn while he was incarcerated in the county jail. Parks recognized Penn’s name while providing him operator assistance on an outgoing collect call. They chatted, and she soon began visiting him in jail. By June, they had built enough of a relationship that Donna was seated with the Penn family when the verdicts were read in the first trial.
The shy and fearful young man with no experience in intimate relationships walked out of the county jail and straight into an all-consuming one with Parks. “It seemed they clung to each other and only needed each other,” Penn’s sister Subrena said. Parks all but moved in with Sagon at his grandfather’s house. Some days when Sagon was not in court, they never left the bedroom except to eat.
The relationship could be rocky. Blowups between the two sometimes went on for days. Penn did not seem to know how to process the conflicts, often coming out the other side emotionally damaged. He was distrustful and afraid of the outside world, avoiding it whenever possible. He was as recognizable among San Diegans as any local celebrity and was loathed by half of them. He lived in fear of reprisal from the police and, with the second trial looming, in terror at the prospect of being found guilty on the remaining charges.
One day in March 1987, Subrena stopped by Yusuf’s house. “You’re going to be an aunt,” Parks told her. She wondered aloud to Subrena if the baby would have Sagon’s nose or long fingers but hoped it would not have his temper. Sagon seemed thrilled about having a real family and the stability it implied.
Sagon and Donna moved out during the pregnancy, staying several months at the home of godmother Barbara Cornist and several weeks with Subrena. Sagon took some community college classes, registering under the name MeeCee Parks to avoid recognition. MeeCee was a name of affection he had been called since he was a small child. Although the two did not marry, he chose Parks because it made him feel they were more like a family. He began using the name in his daily life and planned on having it legally changed. On November 9, 1987, four months after the acquittals in trial two, Brittany Sheree Parks was born. Sagon was listed as the father on the birth certificate.
Sagon showered the baby with love. Fearful that anything could be taken away from him at any moment, he was afraid Brittany would be snatched away by crib death. He slept with her on his chest, he said, so she could hear him breathing and remember to breathe herself. When Donna went to her job at the phone company, Sagon looked after Brittany, proving to be a very capable parent. But his temper became shorter, his tirades more volatile. He had episodes of extreme paranoia. In early February 1988, three months after Brittany was born, Donna Parks broke up with Sagon, took the baby, and moved into her own apartment five miles away.
Subrena later said the breakup triggered something inside her brother. On February 9, 1988, just days after Donna and Brittany moved out, employees of the San Diego Police Department were stunned when Sagon Penn appeared at the information counter earnestly requesting a job application. “He was serious, deliberate, and polite,” a department supervisor reported. He said Penn’s application would receive the same consideration as any other. Many around Penn felt the bizarre move was a desperate attempt to show Parks he was serious about making a career. Others felt it was an attempt to pretend March 31, 1985, never happened, and a misguided belief he could go back to the way things were before.
