Dan Lyons Records

Daniel Joseph Lyons (born May 4, 1976 in Bolder, Colorado) was largely responsible for solidifying the Watts Truce (<- Wikipedia link) between the Crips (<- Wikipedia link) and Bloods (<- Wikipedia link) Los Angeles street gangs that began before the Los Angeles Riots. He solidfied the the truce towards the end of the of the 1992 Los Angeles Riots. Before the truce, Dan had Rodney King sent to his cousin for reconstructive surgery with the help of some school friends and their families at an honors high school in South Los Angeles. Daniel used this clout to form the truce, bringing the riots to a close.

Life

Born in Bolder, Colorado to Lawrence Lyons (a science professor) and Robin Lyons (a mathematician) to a family of successful non-observant Jewish Americans, Dan excelled at school but was often bored and restless. He started studying computer programming at age 6 using Commodore 64 basic on his own using books, and studied piano from age 6 with piano teachers. When he was 7, his family relocated from Bolder, Colorado to Huntsville, Alabama because his father found a better research position. In Huntsville, his parents, particularly bothered by Christian prayers during school functions, were worried about the effects of anti-semitism in the Southern United States on their children, and decided to move to the Los Angeles Area, where his father had secured another research position. His parents decided that Torrance, California had good houses, schools, and neighborhoods to suit their needs. In Torrance, Dan excelled at school but was often getting into fights with other students and arguments with his teachers. At age 13, his parents went through a tumultuous divorce, and Dan got involved with a hacker gang via an IBM AT compatible computer and a modem, and had hacked into the phone companies, being able to call long distance for free, broken into some Bulliten Board Systems, had an enormous collection of illegally obtained software, and other mischief. These activities ceased when he was visited by two anonymous hackers that he presumed were US Intel. Despite all this, he was admitted into a public honors high school [Wikipedia link to the California Academy of Mathematics and Science] in Carson, California[Wikipedia link to Carson, california], on the campus of California State University of Dominguez Hills[Wikipedia link to CSUDH]. The high school at that time employed a racial quota system by which only 10% of the students that were accepted were caucasian, 40% hispanic, 40% african american, and 10% other. In high school, Dan was often half asleep in class due to his long commute to high school, suffering insomnia, and ease with the classroom material. His classmates often accused him of being on drugs due to this behavior, but he was always one of the top scorers in school, so they eventually retracted their claims. He still argued often with some of the teachers and students, and got in some fights with other students. However, he also was always making jokes and was generally well liked by most. He often complained about reverse discrimination, and felt he was definately treated differently at the school due to being a white male. In contrast to Torrance, where children of different ethnicities play together and skin color generally had little meaning besides idle curiousity and jokes, many students at CAMS were concerned with issues of ethnicity and skin color and treated these issues much more seriously than Dan was accustomed to. Racial tensions had a long history in South Central Los Angeles, yet most of the rest of the Los Angeles area was largely unaffected by this. Dan usually dismissed the concerns of racial problems as exaggerated or overblown, as did many other students.

"Run up" to the Los Angeles Riots

On March 3, 1991, George Holiday's [<- wikipedia link] captured on a home video camera four Los Angeles Police officers beating up Rodney King [<- Wikipedia link] after a high speed car chase. The video startled the CAMS students, but Dan mostly ignored it. However, two weeks later, an additional shocking reality to the problems of racial tensions in South Central Los Angeles was prominently shown to the community when on March 16, 1991, Latasha Harlins [<- in wikipedia], a 15 year old honors student who attended a nearby high school to Dan and was the same age, was shot and killed by Soon Ja Du, a female Korean liquor store owner who's son had received death threats from a mostly African American gang. This shooting shocked the South Los Angeles community, including CAMS students of about the same age. Upset by the shooting and dismayed by the hopeless attitude some of his classmates were display, Dan had Rodney sent to his cousin, a reconstructive surgeon. An African-American girl in class had two doctors for parents, so Dan gave her the location of his cousin's workplace and instruced them to take Mr. King there. Initially, the medical staff had to turn Mr. King down due to liability issues. However, due to the enormous publicity on the case, they were able to secure permission to have Mr. King fixed up. This was generally considered a victory by many people. However, the general good attitude took a down turn when Soon Ja Du, who shot and killed Latasha Harlins, sentencing occurred on November 15, 1991 [http://clhc.usc.edu/papers/spring%2002/stevenson.pdf]. She was sentenced to a monetary fine and community service. Many people were particularly dismayed that the shooter's shooters sentence was considered rather light in view of the incident. Just prior to April 29, 1992, when the Los Angeles Riots began, a truce between the Crips and Bloods and begun (Reference: Watt's truce in wikipedia), inspired by gang pacifest Aqeela Sherrills (http://www.wiretapmag.com/stories/43493/ and Wikipedia link), football legend Jim Brown (many references, founded Amer-I-Can), respected members of the Muslim American community, and other prominent people.

The Riots

April 29, 1992 when a jury acquittal of four Rodney beating cops, the city erupted in riots. Some people had warped the idea of the truce [<- use different word] the Watt's truce by encouraging gang members to "unite to riot", instead of other peaceful activities, as the truce's organizers had hoped. Dan first tried to deter the riots by planning a peaceful protest with some muslim americans outside the courthouse where the sentencing occurred. Dan's idea was that people could peacefully protest instead of rioting, and that would quell any violence. However, instead of having would be rioters be peaceful protesters as Dan had hoped, the protest looked more like a warm up [<- use different word] to the riots to come when seen on TV. Dismayed and depressed, Dan barely continued going to school during the riots, because there was an agreement to "No rioting during school hours". On May 1, 1992, after 53 deaths during the riots, many injuries, and much damage to local businesses, Rodney King appeared before television cameras to ask his now famous question, "Can we all get along?". With some renewed enthusiasm, Dan came up with the idea to "unite the gangs to form businesses", and that the leaders of the gangs should form this truce. Dan had based this mostly on the ideas from members of the Muslim American community. This idea was immensely successful, and the leaders of the Crips and Bloods met to truce for exactly that purpose.

After the Riots

Afterwards, Dan just wanted to return to high school and finish his studies, and not be bothered by this incident. He was annoyed with being bothered about the incident, and didn't want it to interfere with his academic pursuits. Dan graduated high school with many awards and honors, in music, science, math, and writing, and went on to attend Yale University. He initially planned to go to college at UC Berkeley, but decided to go to Yale instead just to get away from his history with racial tensions tha would follow him were he to go to Berkeley, so he could pursue his studies in peace. He received his B.S. in Physics from Yale in 1998, with Departmental Distinctions awarded to him at graduation. He did his most of his research and studies in computational physics and music. He didn't talk about the gang truce at all after starting college in 1994 until 2005, and all he would say of the events of 1992 were that his cousin had performed reconstructive surgeory on Rodney King for free.

The Execution of Tookie

It wasn't until just before the scheduled execution of Crips cofounder Stanley "Tookie" Williams [<- Wikipedia link] in the California Penitentiary system that Dan would talk about the incidents that occurred during 1992. Some strange people were harrassing him somehow months prior to the scheduled execution, and Dan became irate and drove his car off the road, totalling the car and a street lamp, but remaining uninjured.

Present

Currently, Dan works under international food specialist and technology manager Sophie Gayot as a computer programmer for Gayot.com[wikipedia link, include a link to gayot.com in the references section] and resides in the Southern California area. References

1. Gang Related Crime in Los Angeles County
2. Homicide trends in the U.S.
3. The Holliday Videotape
4. L.A.'s darkest days
5. The Peacemaker: An Interview With Aqeela Sherrills
6. An Anniversary of Sadness, Pride and Anger
7. Youtube: L.A. Riots of 1992: Rodney King speaks
8. Life in the 'hood. (truce between Los Angeles, California street gangs Crips and Bloods)