It is 10:00 PM as I start to write this and in a little more than two hours from now, Stanley “Tookie” Williams will be dead. It is the end of a process set in motion 25 years ago when he was convicted of the brutal, senseless and depraved killings of four innocent people. As others have pointed out, the body count is conceivably higher as co-founder and head of the Crips street gang. He more than likely ordered the deaths of rivals and recalcitrant gang members during his career. He also plotted the mass murder of guards and fellow prisoners in an escape plan that was thankfully intercepted and halted. Appeal after appeal confirmed what was done in that Los Angeles Courtroom 25 years ago.
The Governor denied him clemency, the California Supreme Court, the 9th Circus Court of Appeals and the Supreme Court of the United States all denied him appeals today. It is the end of the line for Tookie.
People who don’t even know the name of the people he murdered are out tonight in a ghoulish vigil to save him. Where were these people when Tookie was convicted? Who protested outside the courtroom for ALBERT OWENS, TSAI-SHAI YANG, YEN-I YANG, YE-CHEN LIN? Where were Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton and Mike Farrell when some Crips killed a young couple here in Tacoma a couple years back and left their bodies in a car and then left the car sitting in the middle of an intersection? That left six children fatherless and motherless. Tookie probably had nothing to do with it except it is part of the Hell he spawned when he formed the Crips. Where are the celebrities demanding justice for their deaths?
I am not celebrating his death. It’s clear that had Tookie channeled his energies in another direction, he could have easily been someone we could admire. That is the sadness of this.
In all of our lives, we make certain choices. Sometimes, when we were young, we made some stupid choices. Maybe we stole a car or even robbed a store or some might have been involved with drugs. All of those are mistakes that overtime can be forgiven. We all know people that changed their lives and overcome some stupid teenage tricks. Making the choice to murder someone is an entirely different matter.
Murder is a crime so heinous, that in some instances, we as a society deem it worthy to carry the most drastic and dire of penalties. The crimes are so awful, that to allow the perpetrator to live out his natural life behind bars is not punishment enough. This is one of those instances and it is the culmination of a set choices he made a quarter century ago.
Rest in peace, Mr. Williams. The world is a better place without you.
VW
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