UNDERSTANDING THE RIOTS--SIX MONTHS LATER : Touched by Fire / A Legacy of Pain and Hope : THE CHILDREN : Reginald Moves In With His Father, Octavio Drifts Along and Patricia Enters a Job-Training Program

For many Californians, the riots were more than a momentary blip on the screen--they were a flash point for lasting and fundamental changes in their lives. The devastation left a legacy of broken dreams for many, awakened a sense of social justice in some, unleashed anger and hatred in others, and rekindled a spirit of hope among others. Six months after the riots, Times reporters visited some of the people and places touched by the extraordinary events of last spring and on these pages we tell their stories.

A photograph of Reginald LeRoy Gardner II doing wrong helped set him right.

During the riots last spring, a Times photographer snapped a picture of the 6-year-old boy making an obscene gesture toward the police, the middle finger of his left hand thrust high in the air.

When his mother, Davette Demery, saw it in the newspaper, she decided to teach her son a lesson. She wrote a letter to The Times and invited a reporter to get to know her only child.

“My son made a statement,” said Demery, 26. “I’m going to complete it.”

The story described one little boy’s life in Los Angeles--his fear of ricocheting bullets, his love of soccer, his fierce devotion to his mother. It told how, during the riots, Demery used some of her meager income to buy Reginald a new toy. “Don’t become a looter,” she told him.

Reginald’s story struck a nerve. The morning it appeared in the newspaper, people began offering help. Arter, Hadden, Lawler, Felix & Hall, a downtown law firm, called with a job offer for Demery, who had been unemployed for several months. Two days later, she reported for work as an $18,000-a-year file clerk.

Over the next several weeks, dozens of packages arrived, some from as far as Wichita, Kan., and Omaha. A Montrose man sent a soccer ball. A woman offered to be Reginald’s tutor. Many people sent cash. In all, Demery would end up sending 52 thank-you cards.

As much as the gifts, Demery was overwhelmed by the letters. A 64-year-old Laguna Beach woman told Demery she had set an example for mothers everywhere. “My skin isn’t the same color as yours,” she wrote, “but I know we have so much in common just the same.”

Others wrote to Reginald. A Long Beach couple wrote, “We understand that you were angry when your picture was taken, but you are a good person in your heart. You are lucky to have a mother who takes good care of you and loves you so much.”

Strangers were not the only ones who were touched by Reginald’s story. More than 100 miles north of Los Angeles, Reginald’s father was alarmed by what he read.

“It put an impact on me,” Reginald LeRoy Gardner Sr., 31, said recently. “I knew Davette was doing the best she could. It was just the environs. I didn’t want to lose him to L.A., to the gangs.”

The elder Gardner, who works sanitizing ice cream vats at a Bakersfield dairy, had never lost touch with his little boy. He sometimes helped Demery with expenses and talked to his son regularly on the telephone. Infrequently, when he could borrow a car that would make it over the mountains to Los Angeles, Reginald’s father would come to visit.

But after reading the article, he began to think that wasn’t enough.

“I wanted another chance,” he said, “to show Reginald what I expect of him and what he can expect of me.”

Nine days after his story appeared, Reginald celebrated his seventh birthday. A few weeks later, he got on a bus and went to summer camp for the first time. Scott Salmon, a marketing salesman from Van Nuys, had arranged the trip--moved by Reginald’s story, he had found a camp that would waive tuition. He picked up the rest of the tab.

Reginald loved the Wonder Valley Ranch Resort in Fresno County. He made friends, learned how to swim and developed an obsession with horses. Later, he told his mother, “When I was in camp, we didn’t have to fight. We were too busy.”

Demery was busy too. It was great to be working, she said. But she found it difficult to balance motherhood and employment. While she was at work, Reginald’s great-grandfather looked after him. But the boy called her several times a day--something that Demery’s supervisor frowned on.

“He was calling me--’Mom, am I allowed to go outside?’ He was doing as I taught him to do,” Demery said. Of her supervisor, she said, “I never know how to look in her face, because where she lives it’s not like that.”

Demery was weighing a tough decision. Reginald’s father had asked if their son could come live in Bakersfield for a year. Reginald Gardner Sr. would have to drop a class at Bakersfield Community College, where he is studying business administration. But with the help of his parents, who live nearby, he thought he could give his son a good home.

Demery was torn. She knew how much her son yearned to spend time with his father. She couldn’t imagine life without Reginald, but worries about his welfare finally made her let him go. Looking back, she feels he left just in time.

About a week after Reginald left, Demery was in front of her South Los Angeles apartment complex talking with G-Bob, a gang member with whom Reginald had often spent time. As they stood there, a car pulled up beside them, and a man inside pulled a gun and opened fire.

G-Bob was wounded in the arm and leg. Demery scrambled over a six-foot fence, suffering a painful gash in her hand.

The next day, Demery called and said she could not come to work. A week later, she was fired. In three months, according to law firm records, Demery had missed 20 days of work--about one day out of every three. She received too many phone calls, her supervisor said, and was often late.

“We tried to work with her, but her work ethic was just a little different than what we were used to,” said Deborah Maynard, the firm’s director of personnel. “We did give her the opportunity--and not just once, but many, many times--to correct the situation. We did not want to set her up for failure.”

Part of the problem, Maynard concedes, was Demery’s lack of resources--her inadequate day care for Reginald, her lack of reliable transportation and her dangerous neighborhood.

“It is a Catch-22,” Maynard said. “But she is an adult. There are other people in her situation that have made it.”

Demery was humiliated and angry. There were good reasons for her absences, she said, reasons that she had explained to her bosses. Before the drive-by shooting, she’d had a miscarriage, food poisoning and had her wisdom teeth pulled.

A few hours after Demery was fired, she returned to her empty apartment and burst into tears. “I feel like I did something wrong,” she said. Later, she was more bitter.

“It was a kiss-butt job,” she said. “If you kissed the butt, you could have the job.”

Today, Reginald’s life is very different than it was six months ago. Instead of a concrete-paved apartment complex, he lives in a house with a big grassy yard. Instead of sleeping on the floor to evade stray bullets, he sleeps in his bed without fear--though it took him a little while to get used to the sounds of Bakersfield at night.

“This place is quiet,” his grandmother, Dorothy Mae Gardner, said. “You can hear the dogs barking and the birds chirping.”

Reginald Gardner Sr. works the night shift, but he is home early enough to see his son off to school. In the afternoon, he meets Reginald at the bus stop. They do homework together, then chores. Gardner’s mother watches the boy while he sleeps.

Demery visits every two weeks. She is looking for another job and has set herself a deadline: “By January, income is a must,” she said, “even if it’s McDonald’s.”

She misses her son. On a recent visit to Bakersfield, the sight of Reginald playing with a toy gun upset her. In Los Angeles, she would not allow him even a water pistol.

But overall, she agrees with Reginald’s father that her child is thriving.

“The kid is doing great,” Reginald’s father said. “He’s going to be all right.”