Cover Story - Desert Post Weekly
May 2-8, 2002

How I Survived the LA Riots
by Michael Dare

South Central was not my favorite part of town but I had gotten to know it well. My social worker behaved as though I was supposed to be grateful for her kindly allowing my four-year-old son Buster to be moved from a group home in El Monte to a group home in South Central but it wasn't so much of a blessing. Though he was now physically closer to his home in Hollywood, which is what I had been asking for, there was no freeway between us. Having to use surface streets made the trip take just as long. Look at a map and you'll see a thousand different possible routes from Melrose and Fairfax to Slauson and Arlington. For months I explored, discovering all the shortcuts and intersections to be avoided. I knew where to get ice cream, I knew where to get donuts, I knew where to get incredible ribs, and only the functionally illiterate would have had the slightest problem finding liquor.

It was April 29, 1992. I wended my way from the comfort of ultra-liberal West Hollywood to South Central. I was picking up Buster for an overnight visit, which is the final stage on the visitation scale before any child is actually physically released to the parent from the county. They'd had him for nine months and we had had hundreds of visits. Down San Vicente to Pico, Pico to Arlington, Arlington over to Crenshaw and Martin Luther King. I was blocks away and needed a cigarette so I stopped at a place called "The Smoke Shop" hoping they might carry American Spirit, only to discover that all they sold were chemicals for cocaine processing in large quantity. A different sort of American Spirit. If I was being followed by the county, this was a bad place to stop.

I decided I'd get cigarettes afterwards since I couldn't smoke during the visit anyway. A suburban street, just a line-up of homes, one standing out because of a fenced in backyard full of toys and sandboxes and slides and children, all black except mine, including the women running the group home, who were doing a great job. The place was spotless. I couldn't hope to create a cleaner or healthier environment at my home, which made getting my kid back another sort of challenge. Man, how can you compete with a fully funded, well-stocked group home? This place looked MUCH healthier for a kid than my bachelor digs in an old, faux-Spanish, red tile and stucco Hollywood courtyard full of rock musicians and degenerates.

I knew I was being watched. It was a tricky situation because the women of the place have confided in me that they have heard my social worker bragging about her "white baby" and they think it's terrible and they think Buster doesn't belong there. So they're on my side. I went to the front door, got buzzed in, and went to the desk first. It was a makeshift office between the living room and the kitchen - a big playroom where all transactions took place. I showed my ID and signed a paper promising to bring him back in good shape, and they signed a paper stating he was in good shape when he left.

I sat down to watch TV while waiting for them to bring in my son. The Rodney King case was on the news. The women pulled up chairs to watch since the verdict had apparently come in. Suddenly all the kids came running in and they were all over me, six little kids, all under five. I was the only father who visited the home, so any time I showed up it turned into playtime for all. They were being raised by women so the presence of a male made them all go nuts, jumping all over me, playing, I didn't mind, love kids, I'm daddy to all of them, the more the merrier, it's hard to tear myself away but in the midst of all this mayhem I hear the word "Innocent" repeated over and over from the TV.

The adults in the room look at each other in stunned disbelief. Innocent? How could they be innocent? The whole world saw the tape. Obviously they did it. We were in complete agreement that the verdict made absolutely no sense. We kept watching as the commentators showed the tape again, explaining that it wasn't that the four cops were innocent of delivering the beating to Rodney King but that they were innocent of WRONGDOING. In other words they were just behaving the way cops were supposed to behave under those conditions. The LAPD was vindicated. I pulled up a chair and watched when the women started looking at each other nervously. We agreed this was bad. Very bad. Finally, one of them said "I think you should take your son now." Good idea. I separated my offspring from the herd and got the hell out of there.

On the way home, Buster and I stopped to get some ice cream at a Thrifty nearby. We got home, turned on the TV, and saw the place we had just stopped for ice cream burning down.

Like everyone in L.A., we were stuck to our televisions for the night. For most people, watching the riots on television was like watching a report from a foreign country. Nobody from Hollywood or Burbank or Westwood ever visits South Central, so the destroyed landscape they watched was beyond recognition. But Buster and I knew the neighborhoods first hand. We watched in a daze. "Look Buster, there's that fried chicken place we go to burning down." "Look Daddy, there's my pre-school."

I was supposed to return him the next morning but the local TV news made the trip look suicidal. Luckily, the phone rang and it was the group home. "It isn't safe to come anywhere near," they said. "Stay away." I agreed to keep Buster through the weekend.

Then I remembered all his stuff, his clothes, his toys, were still at the group home. I told them I'd try to get there to pick up his stuff. "Stay away," they said. Buster needed toys, he needed puzzles, he needed his books, his videotapes. All the cool stuff I had for him was at the group home. There was nothing for him to do. A friend agreed to watch him for an hour while I snuck back through the riots to the group home to pick up Buster's stuff, which they willingly gave me, wishing me luck as I headed home. Got home to see Reginald Denny pulled from his truck and beaten.

"Why are they doing that, daddy?"

"Because he's white."

"So what?"

"Some other white men did a bad thing to them, so they think it's okay to do a bad thing to another white man, even though this white man had nothing to do with the white men who did something bad to them, and actually it wasn't them but some other black guy the white men did a bad thing to."

I've felt that way myself. I was once ripped off by some bikers. For years I'd look at bikers and snarl, vowing vengeance till I finally realized that taking revenge against someone who simply shares physical characteristics with the people you're really mad at is insane. Revenge has got to be personal. Some day I'll get those bikers. But I didn't tell Buster that.

On Monday Buster was supposed to be returned again. Our social worker, Rhonda Wilson called and asked why I hadn't returned my son. I told her it wasn't safe and the group home agreed. She told me that the group home has no authority over the decision as to whether my son should be returned. She ordered me to bring him back immediately or she would come by to pick him up herself.

This seemed as good a time to make my stand as any. I decided I'd keep him. Me and Charlton Heston. They'd have to tear him from my cold dead hands. Let the cops show up. Haven't they got anything better to do?

Every client on earth is told by their lawyer never to talk directly to the judge unless they are asking you a question. I disobeyed that advice and wrote a personal letter to the judge and send it overnight.

I got a call the next morning from my attorney who said "What did you do?" I told her.

"Judge Silver came in this morning and did something I've never seen a judge do," my attorney told me. I guess she got my letter. First thing in the morning, before getting to her schedule, Judge Silver ordered all representatives in the Dare case into the court, then made a motion and ruled on it without arguments. Nobody had ever heard a judge rule on her own motion, much less without arguments.

At first it was hard to make sense of the ruling, which basically said I could keep my son until my social worker proved it was safe for him to be returned. Why not just give him to me? "Then they'd have to admit that the group home wasn't safe and they'd have to return all those other kids," my attorney explained. I panicked. By leaving the decision in Rhonda Wilson's hands, the situation didn't seem changed at all. There was nothing to stop her from simply calling the next day and saying "It's safe. Return him." But my attorney explained this was a big victory, that the burden of proof had shifted from me to them. The judge had presumed it was safe for Buster to stay with me, so I no longer had to prove it.

Rhonda Wilson called the next day and said "It's safe, return him."

"Don't tell me it's safe," I said. "Tell the court. You've got to prove to them that it's safe, not me."

She was furious. "That wasn't what the judge ruled."

"Yes it was," I said, knowing full well that neither of us were actually there when the ruling was made. "My lawyer told me I could keep him."

"Well that's not what I was told," she replied a little unsurely. "I was told that his return was left at my discretion." She was truly unhappy at my assertion that she had been overruled, but she had to face the fact that the ruling was ambiguous and could be interpreted in my favor. Now that Buster was in my possession, the burden of proof was back on her to justify another removal from his home.

She called the next day. "Mr. Dare, we do not believe you had the right to pick up your child from the group home. But since you have already done it, your son obviously thinks he's staying with you, so we believe it would be detrimental to return him. We don't think it's good for him to be shuttled back and forth. Though we disagree with what you did, for his mental well being, we will recommend to the court today that your son be released to you until the next hearing."

I took Buster with me several times to see Dr. Tirengal, my court appointed therapist. I didn't mind. I wanted the court to hear that my son was doing well from someone they trusted. I was out of the room when Dr. Tirengal asked Buster "If there was anything at home that you could change, what would it be?" When the parents aren't around, this is a standard question asked of children who are potentially abused. It gives them the opportunity to say "I wish daddy wouldn't hit me" or "I wish they wouldn't tie me to the bed." After giving the question serious thought, Buster replied "I'd like to change the water in the goldfish bowl."

A month later, he was finally legally and physically mine. I feel better now. There is no precise moment when the pain stopped. There are all the day to day pains of living to take the place of the single predominant pain that occupied my life for so long. At least I'm no longer apt to break into tears at strange moments.

As the one person on earth who actually benefited from the riots, I want to thank the judge in the Rodney King case, Stanley Weisberg, who was also the judge in the McMartin Preschool case, and who is also the very same judge who gave me custody of Buster three years previously. His original decision has withstood a brutal attack, and stands steadfast once again. My son is mine, not just because Weisberg's original decision was sound, but because one of his juries made a horrible mistake, and I decided to stand my ground. The city went crazy, 50 lives were lost, but I got my son back.

I want to thank the Rodney King jury for returning my son to me in the most profoundly appalling possible way. Thanks a lot. I also want to ask them if they believe the Warren Commission since they suffer from the same strange malady; they believe what others tell them rather than their own lying eyes.

One look at the Zapruder film and you can't fail to notice that Kennedy's head is knocked back and to the left. A simple combination of optical input and common sense leads anyone with the slightest knowledge of the laws of physics to come to the conclusion that the bullet came from the front and to the right. Yet people still insist upon believing experts who tell them the opposite.

One look at the Rodney King tape and you can't fail to notice that an unarmed man is getting severely beaten by several other men armed with sticks and guns. Charles Manson did not get treated that way when he was arrested. Sirhan Sirhan was shown all the courtesies when he was escorted to jail. But Rodney King, a man guilty of driving too fast and acting belligerent, was beaten within an inch of his life. The cops may have been following established procedure, but to a whole lot of people, that was no excuse. The jury insisted upon believing the experts who told them the opposite of what they could see with their own eyes.

How can we explain away people with such little regard for their own senses? Why do they trust others more than they trust themselves? How can so many people conclude that their own eyes are wrong? Though there's no justification for the damage they did during the riots, the actual community of south central insisted upon believing their own eyes, that Rodney King, despite being a sleazeball, behaved like Gandhi before him, defying authority in the strongest and most moral possible way. He kept standing up.