December 14, 2005
Page A2
California Executes Crips Gang Co-Founder
rem orse for the killings com m itted
by the C rips.
“ Is W illiam s’ redem ption co m
Lora O w ens, stepm other o f one
o f the four people W illiam s was plete and sincere, or is it ju st a
convicted o f killing w itnessed the hollow prom ise?"Schw arzenegger
execution. “ I believe it was a just wrote. "W ithout an apology and
punishm ent long overdue," she told atonem ent for these senseless and
A B C ’s "G ixxl M orning A m erica." brutal killings, there can be no re
W illiam s’ case becam e one o f dem ption."
S chw arzenegger said the ev i
th e n a tio n ’s b ig g e st d eath -ro w
cause celebres in decades, with dence o f W illiam s' guilt was "strong
H ollyw ood stars and capital pun and c o m p e llin g ." W itn esses at
ishm ent foes arguing that W illiam s’ W illiam s’ trial said he boasted
sentence should be com m uted to about the killings, saying: "Y ou
life in prison because he had m ade should have heard the w ay he
am ends by w riting children' s b<x>ks sounded w hen 1 shot him .”
Williams wascondemnedin 1981
about the dangers o f gangs and
for gunning dow n co n v en ien ce
violence.
His execution also drew fierce store clerk Albert O w ens, 26, at a 7-
criticism in E urope, w here politi Eleven in W hittier and killing Yen-
cians in S chw arzenegger's native I Yang, 76, Tsai-Shai Chen Yang,
A ustria called for his nam e to be 63, and the cou p le’s daughter Yu-
rem oved from a sports stadium in Chin Yang Lin, 43, at the Los A nge
les motel they ow ned. W illiam s
his hom etow n.
"S chw arzenegger has a lot o f claim ed he was innocent.
W illiam s was led into the death
m uscles, but apparently not m uch
heart,” said Julien Dray, spokes cham ber at midnight, shackled and
man for the Socialist Party in France, handcuffed. He declined to give a
w here the death penalty was abol form al final statem ent.
H e seem ed frustrated by the
ished in 1981.
W illiam s becam e the 12th per length o f tim e it took officials to
son executed in C alifornia since insert the intravenous lines in his
law m akers reinstated the death arm s. He repeatedly looked up,
shaking his head at supporters, re
penalty in 1977.
In the days leading up to the porters and other w itnesses w hom
execution, state and federal courts officials did not identify.
In all, it took nearly a half-hour to
refused to reopen his case. M on
day, Gov. A rnold Schw arzenegger prepare W illiam s for execution. It
denied W illiam s’ request for clem took much less tim e to die: he ap
ency, suggesting that his supposed peared to stop breathing ju st m o
change o f heart w as not genuine ments after a prison official read the
because he had not show n any real death w arrant and said, "T he ex
con tin u ed
fro m Front
Anti-death penalty protesters raise their arms in support o f Stanley Tookie Williams outside of San
Quentin State prison early Tuesday. The convicted killer and Crips gang co-founder's case stirred a
national debate about capital punishment and the possibility o f redemption. (AP photo)
ecution shall now proceed.”
W illiams was described as “com
placent, quiet and thoughtful," by
C orrections D epartm ent spokes
w om an Terry Thornton in the hours
before the execution. He declined
to have a last meal as he w aited in
the holding cell, drinking m ilk in
stead. Prison officials said he spent
his last hours reading mail, w atch
ing television and visiting with his
law yers and friends.
A fter w atching her longtim e
friend die, B arbara Becnel told the
crow d o f hundreds gathered o ut
side prison gates that she w ould
prove W illiam s' innocence and that
S c h w a rz e n e g g e r w as a “ c o ld
blooded m urderer.”
She said W illiam s “w as brave
and strong and he w as everything
we believed him to be.”
Singer Joan Baez, M A S H actor
M ike Farrell and the Rev. Jesse
Jackson were am ong the celebrities
w ho protested the execution.
"Tonight is planned, efficient,
c a lc u la te d , a n tis e p tic , c o l d
blooded m urder and I think every
one w ho is here is here to try to
enlist the m orality and soul o f this
co u n try ,” said Baez, w ho sang
"Sw ing Low, Sw eet C hariot” on a
small plyw ood stage set up ju st
outside the gates.
A contingent o f 40 people who
had walked the approximately 25 miles
from San Francisco held signs call
ing for an end to "state-sponsored
m u rd er.” B ut o th ers, in clu d in g
Debbie Lynch, 52, o f Milpitas, said
they wanted to honor the victims.
“ If he adm itted to it, the g over
nor m ight have had a reason to
spare his life,” L ynch said.
A m ong the celebrities w ho took
up W illiams’cause were Jamie Foxx,
w ho played the gang leader in a
cable m ovie about W illiam s; rapper
Snoop Dogg, him self afo rm erC rip ;
S ister H elen Prejean, the nun d e
picted in “D ead M an W alking” ;
and B ianca Jagger. D uring W ill
iam s’ 24 years on death row, a Swiss
legislator, college professors and
others nom inated him for the Nobel
Prizes in peace and literature.
W illiam s founded theC ripsgang
with a friend in 1971 and m anaged
stay out o f trouble for years despite
hisclaim s that he was a drug-fueled
thug w ho robbed, beat and shot at
people.
A uthorities say the gang is re
sponsible for hundreds o f deaths,
many o f them in battles w ith the
rival B loods for turf and control o f
the drug trade.
W hatever luck W illiam s found
on the streets avoiding the law
ended in 1979 after four people were
killed in a pair o f arm ed robberies
that w ere connected to him and his
pum p-action shotgun.
W illiams never w avered from his
claim o f innocence and said he re
fused to confess to crim es he did
not com m it, even if doing so w ould
save his life. He said he redeem ed
him self w hile in prison and ap olo
gized for starting the Crips.
“T here is no part o f me that ex
isted then that exists now ,” W ill
iam s said recently during several
hours o f interview s w ith The A sso
ciated Press. He said that w hile he
w anted to live and continue his
w ork w ith children, he w as pre
pared to die.
“ I h av en ’t had a lot o f jo y in my
life. But in here," he says, pointing
to his heart, “F m happy. I am peace
ful in here. I am jo y fu l in here.”
David Thomas walks
with his nephew Eric
Flournoy, as he
visits his destroyed
home Dec. 1 after
returning to it for the
first time since
Hurricane Katrina hit
in the Ninth Ward
section o f New
Orleans. (AP photo)
Hotels for Katrina Victims Extended
(AP) — A government pro
gram that put Hurricane Katrina
evacuees in hotels while they
sought other housing must be
extended a month beyond the
deadline set by the Federal
E m ergency
M anagem ent
Correction:
D r. N o rw o o d K n ig h t-
R ic h a r d s o n o f O re g o n
Agency, a federal judge ruled
Monday.
Judge Stanwood Duval ex
tended the program until Feb. 7.
The temporary restraining
order came from a class action
lawsuit filed in November by
H ealth Sciences U niversity
is the founder o f the A ffi-
can A m erican H ealth C oa-
lition. He was m isidentified
advocates for hurricane victims.
Attorneys pressing the lawsuit
said FEMA has failed to pro
vide aid to many who qualify
and that information on the aid
has been slow to reach those
who need it most.
in last w eek ’s front page
story “C all to A ction on
H e a lth .” We regret the er-
ror.
Hurricane Toll Grows Higher
Evacuation
hastened deaths
(A P ) — S in g e r C la r e n c e
“G atem outh” Brown was 81 and
already seriously ill w hen he fled
the area ahead o f Hurricane Katrina,
and associates think the stress o f
evacuating and the heartbreak o f
losing his hom e hastened his death.
Still, the m asterof blues, country,
jazz and Cajun music isn’t part of
K atrina's official death toll o f 1,323
people in Louisiana. Mississippi,
Florida, Alabama and Georgia.
N eitheris 13-month-old Destiny
McNeese, w ho rolled onto her stom
ach and suffocated on an air m at
tress after her fam ily fled from
K entw ood to K entucky.
Nor is a 56-year-old N ew Orleans
w om an w ho had a stroke tw o days
after she w as bused from the infa
m ous storm refugee shelter in the
Superdom e to Texas.
Even as the official toll co n tin
ues to rise w hen m ore bodies are
found in once-flooded hom es, the
real total m ay never be know n.
The victim s are scattered far and
w ide, and the connections o f their
deaths to the storm are not neces
sarily obvious.
O fficially, as o f S unday, the
states counted 1,075 deaths in L oui
siana, 230 in M ississippi, 14 in
Florida and tw o each in G eorgia and
A labam a. But the states have dif
ferent definitions for storm -related
deaths. For exam ple, L ouisiana
counts evacuee deaths from heart
attacks o r strokes before O ct. 1 as
storm deaths, but G eorgia d o esn ’t.
O f the 19 evacuees w ho died in
G eorgia before Oct. 1, one w as shot
and the others had serious m edical
problem s w hen they arrived, said
T od Rose o f the G eorgia D epart
ment o f Human Resources. He could
not reveal causes o f deaths b ut by
that sta te’s standard none w as a
v ic tim o f Katrina.
T he L ouisiana D epartm ent o f
H ealth and H ospitals is getting
copies o f ev acu ees’ death certifi
cates from oth er states and review
ing them to see w hich deaths likely
w ere caused or hastened by the
Aug. 29 storm .
Food Stamp Cuts Would Sting
Budget cuts being considered
by C ongress would hit O reg o n ’s
foixl stam p program disproportion
ately hard, an analysis by the O r
egon C enter for Public Policy finds.
O regonians w ould suffer at least
14 percent o f the food stam p cuts,
even though the state m akes up
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Fridays at 2pm, Sundays at 7pm
October 21-January 27, 2006
less than 2 percent o f the food
stam p caseload nationw ide.
C ongress w ill be deciding soon
w hether to elim inate food stam p
benefits for about 255,000 low -in
com e A m ericans.
A H o u se -p a s se d b ill w o u ld
sharply scale back a provision in
the food stam p rules called “ca t
egorical eligibility” to reach m ore
low -incom e w orking fam ilies and
increase from five to seven the
num ber o f years legal im m igrant
fam ilies m ust reside in the U nited
States before becom ing eligible for
food stam ps.
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