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
OPB RADIO
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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