TOOKIE TERMINATED
Reformed killer dies by lethal jab after Arnie rejects last-ditch pleas for clemency
By Dan Whitcomb
GANG founder and killer Stanley Tookie Williams died by lethal injection yesterday - after governor Arnold Schwarzenegger refused a last-minute clemency plea.
Williams, 51, who led the notorious Crips gang in Los Angeles, was executed for the slaughter of four people in 1979.
He always proclaimed his innocence and, during his 24 years on Death Row, wrote children's books denouncing gang violence.
He was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize for his work.
Last night, extra police were on the LA streets amid fears of riots following his execution.
Terminator star and Californian governor Arnie ignored pleas from Hollywood stars and petitions from 50,000 people to spare Williams.
Furious civil rights leader the Rev Jesse Jackson last night accused Schwarzenegger of executing Williams to improve his image.
He said: "To kill him is a way of making politicians look tough. It does not make it right. It does not make any of us safer."
Two thousand supporters gathered outside San Quentin prison, north of San Francisco, before the execution - which appears to have been bungled.
Witnesses said prison officials had trouble injecting the lethal mixture into Williams's muscular arm.
As they struggled to find a vein, Williams asked one of the guards: "You doing that right He looked up repeatedly and appeared frustrated, shaking his head at supporters and other witnesses.
Williams had refused a final meal and a meeting with a spiritual adviser.
After he was declared dead, his supporters shouted in unison: "The state of California just killed an innocent man," as they walked out of the chamber.
It was the second execution in California this year - and just the 12th since the death penalty was reinstated in the 1970s.
Williams co-founded the Crips, one of the world's biggest and deadliest gangs, in Los Angeles in 1971.
Ten years later, he was condemned to death for gunning down convenience store clerk Albert Owens, 26, at a 7-Eleven in Whittier and killing Yen-I Yang, 76, Tsai-Shai Chen Yang, 63, and the couple's daughter Yu-Chin Yang Lin, 43, at the Los Angeles motel they owned.
Frenzied Despite his claims of innocence, witnesses at his trial said Williams boasted about the killings, stating: "You should have heard the wayhesoundedwhen I shot him."
But during his long time on Death Row, Williams denounced gang violence and won praise for his anti-gang books.
His execution followed a frenzied but failed effort to reopen the case The high-profile campaign to save him was backed by celebrities, including Oscarwinning actor Jamie Foxx, who played Tookie in a cable movie.
Bishop Desmond Tutu, actor Sean Penn, Jackson, rap star Snoop Dogg - himself a former Crips gang member - were also prominent supporters.
But Schwarzenegger said he could see no reason to second guess the jury's decision of guilt due to the weight of evidence against him.
He said: "Stanley Williams insists he is innocent and that he will not and should not apologise or otherwise atone for the murders of the four victims in this case.
"Is Williams's redemption complete and sincere or is it just a hollow promise? ? Without an apology and atonement for these senseless and brutal killings there can be no redemption."
Jackson said he broke the news to Williams about the appeal as he met several supporters in prison.
The campaigner added: "He said, 'Don't cry, let's remain strong.' He smiled, you know, with a certain strength, a certain resolve.
"I think he feels a comfort in his new legacy as a social transformer.".
Last month, Williams said: "I am not the kind of person to sit around and worry about being executed. I have faith and if it doesn't go my way, it doesn't go my way."
The relatives of some of his victims insisted he did not deserve clemency because he had not owned up to his crimes and refused to inform on his fellow gang members.
Lora Owens, Owens's stepmother, watched Williams die.
Before the execution, she said: "Justice is going to be done tonight.
"I don't like it being said it's a political decision. It was an evidence decision."
She said her stepson was shot twice in the back, even though he begged Williams for his life.
Singer Joan Baez, M * A * S * H actor Mike Farrell and Jackson were among thecelebrities who protested outside the execution yesterday.
Baez, who sang Swing Low Sweet Chariot to the crowd, said: "Tonight is planned, efficient, calculated, antiseptic, cold-blooded murder and I think everyone who is here is here to try to enlist the morality and soul of this country."
Sister Helen Prejean, a Roman Catholic nun and a prominent death penalty opponent, compared the death penalty to "gang justice".
The nun, whose story was turned into the film Dead Man Walking, said: "Gang justice is, 'If you kill a member of our gangwe kill you - and don't tell me anything about how you changed your life or what you're going to do. You kill, and we kill you.' And that's what the United States of America is doing with this.
Reformed Crips member Donald Archie, 51, was among those attending a candlelit vigil in Los Angeles yesterday.
Known as Sweetback when he was a young Crip, he said: "The work ain't going to stop. Tookie's body might lay down, but his spirit ain't going nowhere. I want everyone to know that, the spirit lives."
The execution was also condemned in Europe. At the Vatican, Pope Benedict XVI's top official for justice matters denounced the death penalty.
Cardinal Renato Martino said: "We know the death penalty doesn't resolve anything.
"Even a criminal is worthy of respect because he is a human being. The death penalty is a negation of human dignity."
Leaders of Austria's pacifist Green Party went as far as to call for Schwarzenegger to be stripped of his Austrian citizenship - a demand quickly rejected by chancellor Wolfgang Schuessel.
In Graz, the actor's hometown, Greens said they would file a petition to remove his name from the Arnold Schwarzenegger Stadium
Link Here
By Dan Whitcomb
GANG founder and killer Stanley Tookie Williams died by lethal injection yesterday - after governor Arnold Schwarzenegger refused a last-minute clemency plea.
Williams, 51, who led the notorious Crips gang in Los Angeles, was executed for the slaughter of four people in 1979.
He always proclaimed his innocence and, during his 24 years on Death Row, wrote children's books denouncing gang violence.
He was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize for his work.
Last night, extra police were on the LA streets amid fears of riots following his execution.
Terminator star and Californian governor Arnie ignored pleas from Hollywood stars and petitions from 50,000 people to spare Williams.
Furious civil rights leader the Rev Jesse Jackson last night accused Schwarzenegger of executing Williams to improve his image.
He said: "To kill him is a way of making politicians look tough. It does not make it right. It does not make any of us safer."
Two thousand supporters gathered outside San Quentin prison, north of San Francisco, before the execution - which appears to have been bungled.
Witnesses said prison officials had trouble injecting the lethal mixture into Williams's muscular arm.
As they struggled to find a vein, Williams asked one of the guards: "You doing that right He looked up repeatedly and appeared frustrated, shaking his head at supporters and other witnesses.
Williams had refused a final meal and a meeting with a spiritual adviser.
After he was declared dead, his supporters shouted in unison: "The state of California just killed an innocent man," as they walked out of the chamber.
It was the second execution in California this year - and just the 12th since the death penalty was reinstated in the 1970s.
Williams co-founded the Crips, one of the world's biggest and deadliest gangs, in Los Angeles in 1971.
Ten years later, he was condemned to death for gunning down convenience store clerk Albert Owens, 26, at a 7-Eleven in Whittier and killing Yen-I Yang, 76, Tsai-Shai Chen Yang, 63, and the couple's daughter Yu-Chin Yang Lin, 43, at the Los Angeles motel they owned.
Frenzied Despite his claims of innocence, witnesses at his trial said Williams boasted about the killings, stating: "You should have heard the wayhesoundedwhen I shot him."
But during his long time on Death Row, Williams denounced gang violence and won praise for his anti-gang books.
His execution followed a frenzied but failed effort to reopen the case The high-profile campaign to save him was backed by celebrities, including Oscarwinning actor Jamie Foxx, who played Tookie in a cable movie.
Bishop Desmond Tutu, actor Sean Penn, Jackson, rap star Snoop Dogg - himself a former Crips gang member - were also prominent supporters.
But Schwarzenegger said he could see no reason to second guess the jury's decision of guilt due to the weight of evidence against him.
He said: "Stanley Williams insists he is innocent and that he will not and should not apologise or otherwise atone for the murders of the four victims in this case.
"Is Williams's redemption complete and sincere or is it just a hollow promise? ? Without an apology and atonement for these senseless and brutal killings there can be no redemption."
Jackson said he broke the news to Williams about the appeal as he met several supporters in prison.
The campaigner added: "He said, 'Don't cry, let's remain strong.' He smiled, you know, with a certain strength, a certain resolve.
"I think he feels a comfort in his new legacy as a social transformer.".
Last month, Williams said: "I am not the kind of person to sit around and worry about being executed. I have faith and if it doesn't go my way, it doesn't go my way."
The relatives of some of his victims insisted he did not deserve clemency because he had not owned up to his crimes and refused to inform on his fellow gang members.
Lora Owens, Owens's stepmother, watched Williams die.
Before the execution, she said: "Justice is going to be done tonight.
"I don't like it being said it's a political decision. It was an evidence decision."
She said her stepson was shot twice in the back, even though he begged Williams for his life.
Singer Joan Baez, M * A * S * H actor Mike Farrell and Jackson were among thecelebrities who protested outside the execution yesterday.
Baez, who sang Swing Low Sweet Chariot to the crowd, said: "Tonight is planned, efficient, calculated, antiseptic, cold-blooded murder and I think everyone who is here is here to try to enlist the morality and soul of this country."
Sister Helen Prejean, a Roman Catholic nun and a prominent death penalty opponent, compared the death penalty to "gang justice".
The nun, whose story was turned into the film Dead Man Walking, said: "Gang justice is, 'If you kill a member of our gangwe kill you - and don't tell me anything about how you changed your life or what you're going to do. You kill, and we kill you.' And that's what the United States of America is doing with this.
Reformed Crips member Donald Archie, 51, was among those attending a candlelit vigil in Los Angeles yesterday.
Known as Sweetback when he was a young Crip, he said: "The work ain't going to stop. Tookie's body might lay down, but his spirit ain't going nowhere. I want everyone to know that, the spirit lives."
The execution was also condemned in Europe. At the Vatican, Pope Benedict XVI's top official for justice matters denounced the death penalty.
Cardinal Renato Martino said: "We know the death penalty doesn't resolve anything.
"Even a criminal is worthy of respect because he is a human being. The death penalty is a negation of human dignity."
Leaders of Austria's pacifist Green Party went as far as to call for Schwarzenegger to be stripped of his Austrian citizenship - a demand quickly rejected by chancellor Wolfgang Schuessel.
In Graz, the actor's hometown, Greens said they would file a petition to remove his name from the Arnold Schwarzenegger Stadium
Link Here
posted by Kangaroo Brisbane Australia at 5:38 AM
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