This seems so different, and yet so similar.

I posted this on my facebook page back on August 15

Kind of hard to ignore the info coming out of Ferguson...way too many ifs and whys involved in this case.-If the young man reached into the car, then it is hard to consider anyone who is 6'4", 292 lbs as unarmed (I was off here…6’5. 289, according to the autopsy records)…if he didn't, then the officer is probably toast (legally) I heard several lawyers today mention that the courts consider a shoot legit if an officer is attacked and the suspect is fleeing...I wonder if that may have to be revisited?-Why didn't the PD release the information that the officer was injured earlier? I understand why they didn't release the video from the store earlier (their timing for that release was going to be criticized regardless), and the officers name being withheld makes even more sense after seeing stories about the other officer named Darren Wilson, and the hate messages he received.No matter what happens in this case, no one is going to be fully satisfied.

I wasn’t making these comments just because I have a tendency to comment on current events (I Do)…but because I remembered, pretty clearly, a case in San Diego years ago…a case, I might add, where I originally had one view…that the accused was guilty, and was about to go to prison for the rest of his life…but where my mind was changed as the evidence emerged.

The Sagon Penn case was THE topic when I returned to Point Loma in the Fall of 1985 (I had been out of school since March 15th of that year)…and I, and much of the nation (including some names I didn’t realize had been involved), followed the case until the trial.  It seemed open and shut…Penn admitted to shooting  and killing one officer, Thomas Riggs, wounding another officer,Donovan Jacobs, and shooting a female ride-along Sara Pina-Ruiz…I, like most people figured that with the confession, he was toast.

When the trial began, the city was tense (okay, we really were not that tense at Point Loma…most of us were honest enough to realize that we were pretty safe on our campus…we were not really going to get involved in this story…or so we thought) then the details began to emerge, and doubts were raised.

My first thought then was that the defense was just a normal, run-of-the-mill version of “He hit me first.”…but as more and more came out, and more testimony was shared, people began to debate the evidence that was emerging…I remember clearly having the type of argument that only a college student can have with another studen about whether or not Penn should be held responsible for shooting Pina-Ruiz (I argued that if the first shot was excused by the jury, all shots after that would have been, in a situation where you had just been forced to shoot an officer in self-defense, understandable because you would have expected to be shot by the other officer outside the car…and would have expected the person inside the car to also be armed, and thus dangerous…my argument then, as it has been in the situation in Ferguson, hinged on the word “IF”)

I don’t remember anyone who was not surprised when the first trial ended in deadlock…many were not sure if a retrial would even take place, even that decision was litigated.

It did, but not before Sagon Penn enrolled at Point Loma.

“Penn has hardly surfaced since being freed after the first trial, his father said. He enrolled at Point Loma Nazarene College, but quickly withdrew when he was greeted at the campus by a swarm of reporters. He has not returned to school or work since, Thomas Penn said.”(Source)

I knew he was there, but I never met or talked with him.  I always thought that he must have been a commuter student, but my wife, tonight, told me in that he had lived with his attorney’s family, and their daughter had been a Crusader (the proper name for a Point Loma Mascot…but I digress), thus filling in the gap I had always had about why he had chosen PLNC (this was after it stopped being PLC, and way before it became PLNU, BTW).

I do not remember anyone protesting his presence…my wife thought she remembered a few people leaving the school because he was there, but for most of us, any drama was very short-lived.

By the time of the retrial, people had taken sides…and for most, nothing was going to move them…the case was made, the decision announced…acquitted on all charges. By that point, I had come to the conclusion that while no one should have died that night, it was not beyond reasonable doubt to assume that Sagon Penn had acted in self-defense, that he had truly believe that Jacobs was going to kill him…surprisingly, it seems that even ended up being the belief of Thomas Rigg’s family members.

Even after the trial, many refused to accept the findings of the jury…many felt as though Penn had gotten away without any punishment…after spending time reading about his life after the trial, I think that is wrong…I think it haunted him.  His life did not go well after that night in 1985, he made some bad choices. I found this mention from 2000:

"I know for a fact I could have disarmed that homeless person withouttaking his life. If they want a demonstration, I could tell them how to doit.  When a police officer loses their life, there's all this mourning. Butwhen a homeless person gets killed, everyone just goes on with their lives.It's not like a roach got killed here. That's a human being.

No one would have blamed him for completely avoiding the spot light...but the idea that he would have been willing to train officers in hand to hand, to avoid shootings where possible, has a strange resonance.

I don’t think many people mourned Sagon Penn…he killed himself on July 5, 2002…Ted Williams died that day too…I knew about his death, I don’t remember any stories about Penn that day.

I cannot imagine how much Sagon Penn would have appreciated it if Donovan Jacobs or Thomas Riggs would have had a body camera that night (they didn’t exist then).  IF that night happened as the jury found, it would never have had to go to trial, his life would not have had to be dissected…he might have become a police officer, as he had once hoped. The tragedy might have still occurred (always a question if cameras are present), Thomas Riggs might still have been dead, but maybe Penn’s life could have gone in a very different direction, maybe the uncertainty wouldn’t have bred more distrust and hostility…maybe it could have served as a moment where solutions rather then recriminations were utilized.  

Body cameras were not an option in 1985…they are now.  It seems as though the most effective means of removing or reducing the tension of the “he-said/he-said confrontation” would be to make body cams mandatory…let the evidence lead where the evidence leads, but let the truth protect those who might otherwise be punished unnecessarily.

As I was doing research to make sure I didn't misrepresent anything, I discovered that someone else is looking at Ferguson in light of Penn's situation as well.