Tookie Executed
Stanley Tookie Williams was executed Tuesday morning. Williams died at 12:35 a.m. 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.
In the days leading up to the execution, state and federal courts refused to reopen his case. Monday, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger denied Williams’ request for clemency, suggesting that his supposed change of heart was not genuine because he had not shown any real remorse for the killings committed by the Crips.
Williams was condemned in 1981 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. Williams claimed he was innocent.
Witnesses at the trial said he boasted about the killings, stating “You should have heard the way he sounded when I shot him.” Williams then made a growling noise and laughed for five to six minutes, according to the transcript that the governor referenced in his denial of clemency.
About 1,000 death penalty opponents and a few death penalty supporters gathered outside the prison to await the execution. Singer Joan Baez, M A S H actor Mike Farrell and the Rev. Jesse Jackson were among the celebrities who protested the execution.
“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,” said Baez, who sang “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot” on a small plywood stage set up just outside the gates.
A contingent of 40 people who had walked the approximately 25 miles from San Francisco held signs calling for an end to “state-sponsored murder.” But others, including Debbie Lynch, 52, of Milpitas, said they wanted to honor the victims.
Among the celebrities who took up Williams’ cause were Jamie Foxx, Snoop Dogg, Sister Helen Prejean and Bianca Jagger. During Williams’ 24 years on death row, a Swiss legislator, college professors and others nominated him for the Nobel Prizes in peace and literature.
“I haven’t had a lot of joy in my life. But in here,” Tookie said, pointing to his heart, “I’m happy. I am peaceful in here. I am joyful in here.”
Williams’ statements did not sway some relatives of his victims, including Lora Owens, Albert Owens’ stepmother. “(Williams) chose to shoot Albert in the back twice. He didn’t do anything to deserve it. He begged for his life,” she said during a recent interview. “He shot him not once, but twice in the back. … I believe Williams needs to get the punishment he was given when he was tried and sentenced.”
And there you have it…
December 13, 2005 - 09:52 AM on December 13th, 2005
Excuse me? I think I heard these celebrities talk about state sponsored murder? Well, gee, I don’t think Tookies victims were state sponsored. I didn’t hear any comments about the victims or their families. They didn’t ask to be killed. I guess I just sympathize more with them than I do with a cold blooded murdered.
It’s not state sponsored murder, it’s what society has made into law. You kill people you die for it. Nuff said.
I wish I could just face off with these stupid people.
December 13, 2005 - 10:11 AM on December 13th, 2005
BonBon,
I really want to hear these bozo’s answer to why should we not executer convicted killers when YOU won’t be their next victim, and the victims after that won’t be your family and loved ones. The only killer I know of released into Hollywood’s neighborhoods was OJ, and they have ostracized him.
December 13, 2005 - 10:37 AM on December 13th, 2005
Tookie didn’t do it. He was set up by a religious cult just like my boyfriend Scott Peterson (My sweetie-piety as I like to call him).
December 13, 2005 - 10:52 AM on December 13th, 2005
They have no concept of what it is to be a victim, or near victim. If they could have that experience then their attitudes would change then. Believe it.
To this day I a utterly amazed OJ isn’t serving time.
December 14, 2005 - 10:35 AM on December 14th, 2005
Warning, I’m trying to throw gasoline on a fire.
I wonder what the “Never Execute Them” crowd would handle a request by a Muslim prisoner to be executed by imported Saudi Executioners, and that the execution be a by the Koran beheading instead of a lethal injection.
I suppose Kilo is spinning in his office chair contemplating this one.
December 14, 2005 - 10:40 AM on December 14th, 2005
spin spin spin spin
December 14, 2005 - 10:57 AM on December 14th, 2005
No comment, Mike?
December 14, 2005 - 11:08 AM on December 14th, 2005
Innocent my foot he did murdrer those people and why dont they just stop acting like a bunch of idiots:smile:
December 14, 2005 - 05:54 PM on December 14th, 2005
December 14, 2005 - 09:39 PM on December 14th, 2005
Mfarrel is your typical hollywood liberal and we all know what to expect from JESSIE JACKASSON:razz:
December 14, 2005 - 11:09 PM on December 14th, 2005
In the deviant behavior sociology class I took in college, we were taught that roughly 75% of the violent crime in this country is committed by 25% of the criminals. With that kind of recidivism rate, the only sentence other than death that might stop some of these thugs would be to sever their spinal column at the c4 vertebra ala Christopher Reeves. You can’t say life in prison without parole, because they can still escape from that and then they become even more dangerously violent as is evidenced by the number of escapees who not only commit crimes while out, they kill police officers who try to arrest them over the smallest thing in order to avoid going back. Execution is a permanent method of stopping violent career criminals who in many cases have become little more than rabid animals. Animals that society must kill or cage for its own protection.
Even if Tookie wasn’t guilty of the four murders that he was convicted of, he was hardly innocent. He was responsible for or complicit in the hundreds of murders by the Crips street gang that he cofounded. Not to mention the thousands of deaths that resulted from the Crack trafficking carried on by the Crips before and after his arrest. The only real shame in this whole thing is that it took so long to put the animal down. It was a huge waste of taxpayer money. A 4 cent 22 round applied to the back of his skull would’ve been cheaper, faster, and no more painful. Certainly far better than he deserved either way.
December 16, 2005 - 10:41 AM on December 16th, 2005
Theres probibly many of holywood liberal directors waiting to make a movie about him:???: