« Caption this, please! | Main | More pro-voucher evidence »
December 10, 2005
Refresh my memory ...
... were there riots after OJ or Robert Blake were acquitted?
LOS ANGELES Dec 9, 2005 — Community leaders Friday called for peace in the city if convicted killer and Crips gang co-founder Stanley Tookie Williams is put to death next week as scheduled.*Of course, not everyone in South Central waxes poetic about Tookie.
"What hurts is that some people are trying to blame Stan for the 25 years of uncontrollable violence that happened after he went to prison," said Williams' ex-wife, Bonnie Williams Taylor. "That's not his fault any more than it was Al Capone's or Bonnie and Clyde's."But Deborah Brown, a volunteer at the Weingarten YMCA Wellness Center south of downtown, doesn't buy it.
"He killed four people and started one of the worst gangs on the planet," she said, shaking her head. "I understand that some people are saying he changed in prison, but that won't bring those people back. Somebody's got to pay for that."
Retired Compton Police Department gang unit officer Rick Baker, who knew Williams, agreed.
"Anyone who could take credit for organizing a gang that killed 50 times more people than the Mafia — how could you grant a guy like that clemency?" he said.
"That would be like making John Gotti governor of New York."
Posted by Darleen at December 10, 2005 08:06 AM
Comments
Personally I'm of two minds about it.
I don't like the death penalty, but sometimes it seems justified.
Maybe we ought to get rid of the death penalty. I don't see how another killing is going to change things for the better.
Posted by: Carl W. Goss at December 10, 2005 08:36 AM