Fence Fray Deals Blow to Adage on Friendship

Skip Rowland’s attempt to build an otherwise simple 6-foot fence on his Long Beach property has ended in a controversy involving nine police officers, two video cameras, one garden hose and five women who were dragged off to jail screaming, “Don’t shoot my baby!”

“It’s ridiculous to have that many policemen have to come to take care of a fence,” Rowland said some time after Louise Dang, her mother and three sisters sprayed him with the hose.

For years the Dangs and the Rowlands lived rather peacefully next to each other. That changed two months ago when Rowland, a retired high school football coach, tore down the old wood fence in his back yard and started to replace it with a cinder-block wall.

Dang said the new fence was 27 inches onto her property. She reminded Rowland of this by erecting between their back yards a barricade with a wood bench, several logs and a flower pot. Then she pinned a note to the barricade that read, “Absolutely no trespassing.”

The building stopped while the city came in to survey the land. The city concluded the fence was fine and issued permits to let the building begin.

But when the contractor and his crew showed up to start work Wednesday morning, the Dang sisters and their mother protested. When the workmen moved away the logs from the barricade, the Dangs put the logs back.

Soon, everyone was standing in the adjacent back yards, including four of the Dang children--ages 1 to 5--and Rowland’s son, the lawyer.

The lawyer brought out his video camera and recorded the following scene, which was later played for reporters:

Louise Dang produces her video camera, along with her sister Sylvia’s Instamatic. They all take pictures of each other while the workmen try to dig, and the barricade is rearranged.

By this time, there is a considerable amount of shouting. The Dang sisters turn the garden hose on Rowland and the workmen.

“Help, police!” one workman cries. Another workman quits. The Dang family sits down on the fence, refusing to move, and somebody calls the police.

Soon nine officers are standing in the back yard, patiently explaining to Louise Dang that if her family does not allow the construction to go on, they will all have to be arrested.

The Dang family later claimed it was police brutality that ultimately caused them to be dragged to jail, but the Rowland videotape suggests otherwise. (The Dangs say their videotape tells a different story, but it was confiscated by the police. The police say they don’t have it.)

“Please,” the officer pleads with the women, trying to avoid an arrest. “I really don’t want to do this. . . . Is there anything I can do? Anything I can say?”

“Beat me,” one of the Dangs responds. The children start to cry.

“Is there any religious or any other significance to this area that is causing you not to move?” the officer tries.

The Dangs just sit there. The officers move in to make the arrests.

“Don’t shoot me,” one of the Dangs begins to wail. The officers look blankly at each other.

“Don’t shoot my baby!” another Dang shrieks.

Finally, the officers drag and carry the women, kicking and flailing, into a white police van.

“Make my day,” one of the Dangs is heard to say as the van rolls away shortly before noon.

By 6 p.m., the fence was up.

“I’ve never seen officers work so hard not to make an arrest,” someone noted.

“I’ve never seen a fence go up so fast in all my life,” Rowland’s wife, Lorna, said.

The Dangs were charged with trespassing and released around midnight. They were ordered to appear in court April 4.