The Sagon Penn Retrial: A Shared Tragedy Revisited

The retrial of Sagon Penn is now under way, and while this second version is likely to seem less sensational until the verdicts are in, its ultimate impact on the community could be at least as divisive as the first. More than any other violent case in many years, the Penn case forces people to take sides, and, worse, divides them to a large extent along racial lines.

The general outline of the events leading to the death of Police Agent Thomas Riggs and the wounding of a fellow officer and a civilian is well-known by now. Penn, a young black man, was stopped by Police Agent Donovan Jacobs, who was joined by Riggs. A fight ensued; Penn grabbed Jacobs’ gun and used it to shoot the two officers and Sara Pina-Ruiz, a civilian observer riding in Riggs’ car.

In the original trial, the jury heard conflicting testimony about who started the fight and whether Jacobs provoked Penn by making racial remarks and hitting him. The jury acquitted Penn of several charges, including murder, but was hung on charges of attempted murder of Pina-Ruiz, voluntary manslaughter in Riggs’ death and attempted voluntary manslaughter in the wounding of Jacobs. Now Penn is being tried again on those charges.

Much has been made of the ethnic composition of the current jury, which, were it not for a ruling by the judge, would have had no black members. As it is, there are two Latinos, one Asian and one black. But the danger of this attention to race is that it can lead to assumptions about how a juror might--or should--vote. The justice system doesn’t work that way. What’s more important than the ethnic makeup of the jury is whether the panel has people who are wise, hard-working, attentive and willing to make up their own minds. As before, it is hard to imagine an outcome to this trial that does not leave some segment of the community--especially either blacks or the Police Department--feeling that justice has been denied. Many police officers already feel that Penn’s acquittal on the charge of murdering Riggs was a travesty, while many blacks feel the same way about the district attorney’s decision to retry Penn at all.

Whatever the verdicts in the retrial, once they are in, people of all viewpoints should see the outcome as a manifestation of a tragedy shared by all, not as a victory for one side at the expense of another.