Publishers Weekly
★ 04/22/2024
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. (July)
From the Publisher
Amazon, A Best Book of the Month
Los Angeles Daily News, A Most Anticipated Summer Read
Daily Kos, A Notable New Book
"[An] engrossing work of reportage."—Michael Giltz, Parade
"A gripping true-crime narrative set against the evocative backdrop of Southern California." —C. Christopher Smith, The Englewood Review of Books
"In meticulous yet utterly spellbinding detail, Houlahan lays out all aspects of the case, from the backstories of the principal figures to the tragic shootings that evening and in particular, the intriguing courtroom battle between prosecution and defense." —Booklist (starred review)
"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." —Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"[A] fast-paced narrative . . . An assumption-shaking true-crime narrative that transports readers onto the street and into the courtroom." —Kirkus Reviews
"Reap the Whirlwind’s novelistic narrative style delivers emotional weight as Houlahan plots out the cataclysmic event and its aftermath, from skewed news reporting to the inner workings of the judicial system to the messy interpersonal drama that followed Penn, whose psyche suffered devastating consequences. When the story develops into a full-fledged courtroom drama, Houlahan remains an impartial, careful observer. A topical, piercing story about how perspectives on law enforcement and innocence shift depending on who you are, Reap the Whirlwind shows how police brutality and racial profiling impact Black victims far beyond the actual incident—even when they make it out alive." —Natalia Berry, BookPage
“Houlahan’s documentary-esque book reads like a thriller and offers a panoramic view of the original altercation and everything that occurred as a result . . . We readers come away from the book with a strong sense of time and place in the San Diego of the mid-to-late 1980s, we feel we know Sagon Penn and Donovan Jacobs and many other people who were or became integral to the drama, we get the racial divides existent in the city at the time, we react to the many stunning twists and turns that came out of the two extensive trials. And Houlahan is balanced in how he presents the story, not taking sides but rather telling all that he learned from a wide variety of angles and via many opposing perspectives and allowing us to draw our own conclusions as to who were the real victims and villains in the tragedy. Reap the Whirlwind is a deeply satisfying read that is the true crime version of a courtroom thriller novel.” —Brian Greene, Retreats from Oblivion
Kirkus Reviews
2024-05-31
A largely forgotten incident of racist policing and its tragic consequences form the heart of this fast-paced narrative.
In March 1985 in San Diego, writes Houlahan, author ofNorco ’80, a belligerent police officer decided that a pickup truck containing young Black men needed to be rousted on suspicion of gang activity. Although the driver was “a soft-spoken and idealistic young man who believed his Buddhist chants could bring about the oneness of humanity,” in an act of self-defense while being beaten, he wrested a gun from one officer, killed a cop, and wounded a second one and a civilian ride-along. Sagon Penn soon surrendered himself to the police. Put on trial, he was proven to be justified, thanks in part to testimony from a witness who’d called 911 to “report some police brutality right in front of my house.” He was acquitted of several charges, but others were retained for a second trial that dragged the process out for more than two years, exposing a pattern of police violence and racism—and, in the end, forcing reforms. Even though acquitted a second time, Penn was broken by the criminal proceedings. Of all the meaningful statements from dozens of people that Houlahan interviewed, the most memorable comes from Penn himself, who said, “Sagon Penn was killed that night too….He no longer exists.” A tragedy from whatever point of view, Penn’s story foreshadows many others, from Rodney King to George Floyd and beyond. “Never before in American History had a young Black man admitted to killing a police officer and been found not guilty by a jury for having acted in self-defense,” noted Penn’s lawyer. Nonetheless, he said, “there is nothing to celebrate. This story began as a tragedy, and it ends as a tragedy.”
An assumption-shaking true-crime narrative that transports readers onto the street and into the courtroom.
