Jacobs Sticks to Story at Trial : Doesn’t Budge Under Silverman’s Tough Questions

Police Agent Donovan Jacobs, a key witness in the Sagon Penn slaying trial, Friday doggedly stuck to his story for the third day, under intense questioning by defense attorney Milton Silverman.

Jacobs again denied provoking a fight with Penn or using racial slurs. Jacobs’ statements contradicted testimony of eyewitnesses in the first trial of Penn, accused of killing Police Agent Thomas Riggs, of wounding Jacobs and of wounding a civilian observer in a police car.

While professing some confusion about the precise origin of the conflict, Jacobs has asserted that it was Penn who acted belligerently and has consistently denied accounts that he brutalized Penn, who is black.

“It’s just not within me to do that,” said Jacobs, a white officer who remains partly paralyzed from a bullet wound received in the March 31, 1985, confrontation with Penn. “I don’t believe I did anything wrong.”

Jacobs, who is scheduled to resume his testimony Monday, faced more than three hours of sometimes intense cross-examination from Silverman, who has continued to hammer at Jacobs’ credibility. Silverman has argued that a “racist” Jacobs attacked Penn, prompting Penn to seize the officer’s weapon and fire in self-defense.

“Are you sure you didn’t touch him (Penn), as you are sure you didn’t call him a nigger?” Silverman asked at one point.

“That’s not in my nature,” Jacobs replied.

Later, Silverman asked Jacobs: “You’re the kind of stand-up guy, who, if something went wrong, you would tell this jury about it?”

Jacobs replied: “I would tell them exactly what happened.”

Earlier, the officer had said: “I wouldn’t lie about it. . . . I would . . . take my lumps.”

Penn, 25, is being tried on five charges ranging from assault to attempted murder arising from the confrontation with Penn in an Encanto driveway.

The incident began, Jacobs testified, when he stopped Penn’s truck after it had made an illegal U-turn--something disputed by witnesses and physical evidence--and after Jacobs had spotted a possible gang member among its passengers.

Penn has not disputed grabbing Jacobs’ gun and firing during the struggle, but his attorney has insisted that Penn’s response was a legitimate act of self-defense in the face of Jacobs’ brutal behavior.

Last June, a jury acquitted Penn of murder and some other major charges after a lengthy trial. The current trial, which is expected to last several months, involves the charges on which the jury deadlocked.

The widely publicized case, with its overtones of racism and police brutality, has generated widespread interest and focused considerable attention on the policies of the San Diego Police Department.

Throughout the case, Silverman has made the credibility of Jacobs, 30, who has been reassigned to desk duty, a central issue. On Friday, Silverman examined Jacobs’ various versions of the incident’s origins with painstaking detail, pointing out how some of the officer’s statements seemed vague, contradicted witnesses’ accounts, or, on occasion, seemed to conflict with his own earlier versions.

“I suppose I would have reason to lie,” Jacobs acknowledged after Silverman pressed him to concede that the officer might have faced departmental charges if he had indeed beaten and taunted Penn, as other witnesses have testified. “But I wouldn’t lie.”