Violence, Race, Justice, and the Story of Sagon Penn
Starred review from April 22, 2024
A traffic stop in 1985 San Diego ends with a white cop dead and a young Black man on trial in this riveting account from bestseller Houlahan (Norco ’80). In March of that year, two white police officers pulled over a pickup truck carrying seven young Black men they suspected of gang affiliation (who in fact had been attempting to go to the park). The driver, Sagon Penn, an accomplished martial artist, became flustered by officer Donovan Jacobs’s demands to see his license. Jacobs quickly escalated to attacking Penn with his baton, but Penn, with his taekwondo training, easily fended off Jacobs and his partner Thomas Riggs. A crowd gathered and Penn was subdued, but, prompted by onlookers’ warnings that his life was in danger and the officers’ slur-filled threats, Penn grabbed Jacobs’s gun. He shot Jacobs, Riggs (who died from his wound), and a woman on a ride-along in Riggs’s car. At the 1986 trial, Penn’s lawyer argued that his actions were justifiable self-defense, and he was only found guilty of assault. In a colorful narrative populated with well-drawn characters, Houlahan explains how the case laid bare the city’s long-simmering tensions over policing and how the verdict served to turn down the heat, opening meaningful dialogue between police and the Black community. The result is a propulsive legal thriller with deep insight into Southern California policing history.