Jackson Fans Render Their Own Verdict

It took only 10 slaps to split open the Tom Sneddon pinata strung up Saturday on a pepper tree at a local park.

Cheers went up, hard candies and Tootsie Rolls came down and a few Michael Jackson fans scrambled for the loot cascading onto the lawn. If the child-molestation case against their hero collapses as quickly as the effigy of his chief prosecutor, justice will, indeed, be sweet.

But the several hundred fans expected for the Many Nations, One Voice rally, which started Friday and is to continue through Monday morning, know all too well that Jackson is engaged in the fight of his life. And although they are quick to point out that they are driven only by love, quite a few are also downright angry.

From chat rooms to courtrooms to candlelight vigils, outraged fans sound variations on the theme offered at the rally: Jackson is being railroaded.

“Obviously, they’re fairly upset,” said Michael Jackson Fan Club president Deborah Dannelly, a legal assistant from Corpus Christi, Texas, who organized the rally. “It’s a difficult time.”

On Saturday, a couple of dozen fans gathered at a park pavilion to make posters for their Monday morning march, arrange for rides to a candlelight vigil at Jackson’s Neverland ranch and smash the daylights out of an Incredible Hulk pinata whose face was a photograph of Sneddon, the Santa Barbara County district attorney.

Vernay Lewis, one of Dannelly’s 14 volunteer assistants at the fan club, reminded the group that Jackson fans recognize Sneddon as “a child of God” and then invited the pinata smashers to step forward.

Blindfolded with a purple silk scarf, they walloped the Sneddon stand-in mercilessly. Seany O’Kane, a 23-year-old Irishman living in Liverpool, struck the coup de prosecutor.

“I’m a big fan of justice,” he said. “At the very end of all this, when Michael is acquitted, there will be all these people who will say they knew he was innocent all along. Well, I ask you, where are they now?”

Some of Jackson’s supporters have few kind words for journalists, whom many tend to see as uncharged co-conspirators in a plot to bring the pop star down.

At the gates of Neverland one afternoon last week, a wary fan ended an interview moments after it started by trying to rip a reporter’s notebook from his hands.

“Give me my words back!” she screamed. “I want my words back!”

Early the next morning, three young women who had flown in from Germany were standing at a corner that Jackson’s convoy would glide by on the way to court. They carried a doll with a photo of Sneddon pasted to its face and the letters KKK stitched onto its striped prison outfit. They unfurled a large German flag on which they had lettered: “Germany loves and supports you -- you’ll never walk alone.”

Although their props were eye-popping, their lips were sealed. They wouldn’t talk to a reporter, beyond explaining that the words of fans had been too often twisted to make both them and Jackson look weird.

“We’re not here to do interviews,” one of them said. “We’re here to support Michael.”

Jackson has attracted millions of fans with his chart-busting songs and elastic dance moves. Even in jury selection for his current trial, a number of prospective jurors talked fondly about how much they enjoyed his music.

Early on, the pop star’s support was a lot louder, with hundreds of Jackson’s supporters massing in Santa Maria for several significant pretrial hearings.

For Jackson’s Jan. 16 arraignment, the “convoy of love” bus flotilla had picked up fans at church parking lots throughout Los Angeles before dawn and taken them to the courthouse. After he was done in court that day, Jackson pleased the faithful by doing a few dance moves on top of his SUV.

Now the scene outside the courthouse is a study in serenity. Chatting groups of police officers outnumber the few fans who were unable to snag any of the courtroom’s 50 seats reserved for the public.

Despite the low numbers in Santa Maria, Jackson’s support has only increased, said Dannelly, who helped establish the Michael Jackson Fan Club in 1992.

Charges against Jackson have boosted membership to 17,000, she estimates -- a jump of 20% to 30% in about a year. Hers is just one of numerous Jackson fan groups.

“A lot of people weren’t members but have always had an inner liking for the artist,” she said. “When something like this happens, they feel it’s time to get up and speak. They want to be heard.”

The weekend rally is guaranteed “massive media coverage,” the club promises on its website. “The eyes of the world will be on Santa Maria -- will you be there?”

Planned events include a fans’ tribute to Jackson tonight and an Olympic-style procession to the courthouse Monday morning, with fans bearing their nations’ flags.

Participants in the Monday event are urged to carry candles and wear white. Gold armbands -- like Jackson’s -- will be provided.

Over the years, Jackson’s fans have been famously loyal, with a few displaying their devotion in ways that even some other fans see as extreme.

Among the regulars at the courthouse are people who say they gave up jobs and dropped out of school to advance the Jackson cause. One woman, who was rushed to a hospital after fainting at the courthouse earlier this month, said she has been celibate for years as a personal show of faith in Jackson.

Of course, most of the fans converging on Santa Maria choose less dramatic actions, staying on hand for days instead of months.

“The people that move here? They’ve got issues,” said Lisa Marie Flores, a 21-year-old dog groomer from Clovis, Calif.

“I’ve heard them refer to Michael as Jesus Christ. That bothers me.”

Flores and her friend Stellanie Saunders, a media student from Queens College in New York, were among those gathered at the gates of Neverland for Jackson’s return from court one afternoon last week.

Saunders, 21, was delighted when Jackson rolled down the window of his SUV and complimented her on her choice of pocketbook and cellphone case, both from a line of products called Baby Phat.

“He’s so humble and so loving,” Saunders said. “He talks to us like we’re family.”

In court, no interchange is permitted between Jackson and his admirers.

Fans start showing up at 6 a.m. for a seat in court. Those who don’t get in remain behind police barriers, chanting and cheering at the sight of Jackson and his attorneys but otherwise sitting for hours on beach chairs or on the pavement.

Now and then, chants are aimed at prosecutors.

“Leave him alone!” the fans demand.

Or they recite a couplet unlikely to be heard at the trial of any other alleged child molester: “It’s cold, cold, cold out here. Must be a liar in the atmosphere.”

There also are simple statements of support, like the lilting rendition of a standard cry offered by a Nigerian woman in a pink muumuu: “The King of the Pop is inn-o-cent,” she yelled, with others following suit.

One regular carries a sign about Sony, suggesting that the multinational entertainment company is conspiring to ruin Jackson. The company wants Jackson’s lucrative share of rights to songs by the Beatles, or so the theory goes.

However Jackson’s troubles came to pass, many fans say they’re trying to help him as he has helped them. Bad relationships, severe illness, even molestation: Fans have had their problems, and some say Jackson has pulled them through.

A 29-year-old woman in a black felt hat said that since January, she has twice flown from Scotland to spend a week at a time in Santa Maria.

After she goes home, she said, she’ll scrape together more money from her job with a caterer, and she’ll be back.

“It’s a hard thing to balance your career and Michael,” said the woman, who has Jackson’s name and dancing feet tattooed on her shoulder.