THE PENN VERDICT : CHRONOLOGY OF EVENTS

The Sagon Penn case, a personal tragedy to those involved in the shooting, has had quite an impact on the black community and San Diego law enforcement. This is a chronology of the case and some of its consequences:

MARCH 31, 1985: San Diego Police Agent Thomas E. Riggs was fatally shot, Agent Donovan Jacobs was seriously injured, and a civilian riding with Riggs, Sarah Pina-Ruiz, was wounded during a traffic stop in Encanto. The suspect, Sagon Penn, 23, fled the scene in Jacobs’ patrol car but later turned himself in at the downtown police station. He was arrested and booked without bail into County Jail.

APRIL 3, 1985: Penn pleaded innocent to one count of murder and two counts of attempted murder. Bail was set at $250,000. Funeral services were held for Riggs.

MID-APRIL, 1985: An internal San Diego Police Department task force was established to study police safety, in light of the shootings.

MAY 10, 1985: Penn was ordered to stand trial in Superior Court on charges of killing a police officer and wounding another officer and the police ride-along.

MAY 30, 1985: Citing an increasing rift between police officers and the black community since the Penn incident, Southeast San Diego community leaders held a “town meeting” with police representatives so residents could air their complaints about police behavior.

JULY 16, 1985: Spurred by complaints of decaying relations between the black community and the police, the City Council approved creation of the Citizens’ Advisory Task Force on Police-Community Relations. The committee eventually recommended that police internal investigations be reviewed by a panel of citizens appointed by the city manager.

AUG. 2, 1985: The Police Department adopted one-third of the 100 recommendations by its internal police safety task force. Specific recommendations were not disclosed, but were said to affect the department’s crime-fighting philosophy, training, hiring, equipment and critiques of incidents involving shootings.

OCTOBER, 1985: San Diego Police Officer Jenny Castro found an 8-year-old transcript of a conversation during Jacobs’ police training in which superiors criticized Jacobs for his willingness to use racist remarks. She put it aside, later testifying that she didn’t realize its significance.

OCT. 28, 1985: As jury selection got under way, Police Chief Bill Kolender expressed disappointment that the district attorney’s office would not seek the death penalty against Penn.

OCT. 30, 1985: Judge Earl H. Maas approved Penn’s request to fire Robert Slatten as his defense attorney and hire San Diego lawyer Milton Silverman, delaying the start of the trial.

JAN. 24, 1986: The 4th District Court of Appeal ruled that Penn was entitled to obtain information from the San Diego Police Department regarding previous “acts of violence or aggression” by Jacobs.

FEB. 19, 1986: Jury selection got under way for a second time.

FEB. 28, 1986: Pina-Ruiz filed a civil lawsuit against Penn and the City of San Diego. The case is pending.

MARCH 6, 1986: Jury selection ended after 140 prospective jurors were interviewed.

MARCH 11, 1986: Opening arguments began in the courtroom of Judge Ben Hamrick.

APRIL 1, 1986: Jacobs filed a $5-million civil suit against Penn, claiming Penn shot him without justification. This case, too, is pending.

APRIL 8, 1986: Jacobs testified that it was not he, but Riggs, who first used a night stick to fend off Penn, contradicting other witnesses’ testimony.

MAY 15, 1986: The jury began deliberations.

MAY 16, 1986: Jurors told Hamrick they had reached a verdict on one of the six charges, but it was not announced because of a bomb threat at the downtown courthouse.

MAY 19, 1986: Hamrick asked jurors to wait until a verdict was reached on all counts before announcing their decision.

MAY 20, 1986: To avoid a possible restart of deliberations, Hamrick ordered the partial verdict unsealed because juror Vernell Hardy had delivered a baby the previous night and might not have been able to remain on the jury. Penn was found guilty of assault with a deadly weapon for driving a patrol car over Jacobs. Castro gave the Jacobs police training transcript to Assistant Police Chief Bob Burgreen at a meeting with Burgreen and Chief Kolender. Castro later testified that, because of a memory disorder, she could not recall details about her discovery of the transcript or the reasons why she turned it over to her superiors when she did.

MAY 21, 1986: The Police Department gave the district attorney’s office the Jacobs transcript.

MAY 27, 1986: The partial verdict was canceled by Hamrick when juror Hardy said she had second thoughts about the guilty verdict.

JUNE 2, 1986: The district attorney’s office told Hamrick about the Jacobs transcript. Prosecution investigators, seeking reasons to disqualify Hardy, interviewed Hardy’s co-workers to see if she made any pretrial comments about the Penn case. They were later ordered by the judge to halt their probe after Hardy complained.

JUNE 3, 1986: Silverman requested a mistrial on grounds of “outrageous governmental misconduct” because of the Hardy investigation. Hamrick denied the defense request.

JUNE 5, 1986: Hamrick ordered the jury to remain sequestered until a verdict was reached.

JUNE 9, 1986: The existence of the Jacobs transcript was revealed publicly and termed by the defense as something that could “significantly affect jury deliberations.” Hamrick rescinded the jury sequestration order after Hardy and another juror threatened to quit.

JUNE 10, 1986: Hamrick denied a defense request to introduce the Jacobs transcript as new evidence.

JUNE 26, 1986: Penn was found innocent of murder and attempted murder in the slaying of Riggs and the shooting of Jacobs; the jury deadlocked on charges of the attempted murder of Pina-Ruiz, manslaughter of Riggs, voluntary manslaughter of Jacobs and assault with a deadly weapon against Jacobs. After 15 months in jail, Penn was released on $25,000 bail.

JULY 10, 1986: The district attorney’s office announced that it would seek a retrial on the undecided charges.

AUG. 25, 1986: Hamrick refused the defense’s request to drop the remaining charges. The defense appealed the judge’s decision.

SEPT. 4, 1986: The state appellate court denied the defense’s request to dismiss all remaining charges.

SEPT. 5, 1986: At the 11th hour, the California Supreme Court postponed the start of the retrial until it could review the lower courts’ decisions. The retrial had been scheduled to start Sept. 8.

SEPT. 12, 1986: A San Diego police officer, while preparing to move to the new department headquarters, discovered a videotape of the homicide scene that had been made two hours after the March 31 shooting.

DEC. 3, 1986: The state Supreme Court refused to consider the defense’s plea for a review of the case.

JAN. 5, 1987: The district attorney’s office requested that no mention be made of the Jacobs transcript during the retrial.

JAN. 10, 1987: Superior Court Judge J. Morgan Lester was assigned to the retrial.

JAN. 20, 1987: The retrial began.

JAN. 27, 1987: Lester ruled that the Jacobs transcript could be used as evidence in the retrial.

JAN. 29, 1987: Lester, citing a “legal error” made in Penn’s first trial, approved a prosecution request to add three counts of assault with a deadly weapon.

FEB. 19, 1987: The 4th District Court of Appeal dismissed one of the assault with a deadly weapon charges, ruling that jurors in Penn’s first trial had found him innocent of assaulting Jacobs with a deadly weapon.

MARCH 11, 1987: Jacobs testified that he stopped Penn’s truck the night of the shooting because he believed the vehicle contained gang members; this contradicted his testimony in the first trial that he stopped Penn for an illegal U-turn, an action disputed by numerous other witnesses.

MARCH 17, 1987: Jacobs conceded he may have used obscene language with Penn and said he believes that the use of some expletives can be appropriate in police work.

MARCH 30, 1987: The judge and jury visited the crime scene, where the defense and prosecution reenacted the events that took place the night of the shootings.

MAY 19, 1987: In surprise testimony, a black police officer with the San Diego Community College District said Jacobs threatened him verbally when he criticized Jacobs for manhandling another black man.

MAY 20, 1987: A black former San Diego police officer testified that Jacobs once called him a “nigger” and frequently used racial slurs while making arrests.

MAY 27, 1987: San Diego City Manager John Lockwood announced that a committee of former judges, grand jurors and civil service commissioners would be picked as “consultants” to review internal police investigations of citizens’ complaints about officer misconduct. The idea for such a review originated after the Penn shooting, but minority leaders criticized Lockwood’s choice of board members as unrepresentative.

JUNE 10, 1987: Jury deliberations began.

JULY 13, 1987: At its own request, the jury was sequestered.

JULY 16, 1987: Penn was acquitted of attempted murder and attempted voluntary manslaughter in the shooting of Pina-Ruiz, attempted voluntary manslaughter in the shooting of Jacobs, and voluntary manslaughter in the slaying of Riggs. The jury could not reach agreement on three lesser charges.