South Central's hope: clemency for Williams [Tookie]

San Francisco Chronicle ^ | 12/9/5 | Peter Fimrite

[SmithL]

For residents of gang-ravaged area, debate on founder of Crips centers on transformation.

Los Angeles -- In the heart of South Central Los Angeles, a place so immersed in the gang lifestyle that even the schools are affiliated with either the Crips or the Bloods, Shiloh Badili paints.

The 52-year-old muralist, like many others in this impoverished flatland, knows what it is like to mourn a relative killed by what he calls "the meanness."

He also knows, as everybody here knows, that Stanley Tookie Williams, the man scheduled to be executed Tuesday morning at San Quentin State Prison, played a pivotal role in plunging the neighborhood down that dark path when he started the Crips gang 35 years ago.

Badili, nevertheless, believes that Williams' life should be spared. He believes it, he said, for the same reason he scrapes together his pennies to purchase paint and bathe vacant storefronts and buildings with colorful images.

"Just like that mural is re-awakening the neighborhood, turning something bad into something good, Tookie is using his incarceration time that usually makes people miserable to make life better for others," Badili said. "Commuting his sentence could be the good thing that allows good to blossom here in South Central."

Badili speaks, generally, for many people in South Central Los Angeles, where the plight of Williams is on everybody's mind. An informal street-corner survey by The Chronicle found people sympathetic to the families of Williams' victims but no one favoring his execution.

[libstripper]

"It is imperative to stop it, and it can be stopped," Rivers said. "Tookie is a vital part of that effort. Who better to help stop it than the person who started it? I'm a living example of how second chances can work."

If Tookie actually wanted to stop the gang crime, he'd have long ago agreed to be debriefed by the authorities and informed on all of his former associates. Absemt that, everything he's doing is just a sham to escape a much deserved dirt nap.

[bert]

....in this impoverished flatland....

How about "land of the underachieving nerdowells who wallow in ignorance and self imposed poverty"

[daviscupper]

Modern day version of "live by the sword, die by the sword."

By the way, if Tookie is pardoned I will have a hard time criticizing any police officer for prematurely firing his gun under any circumstances. I mean, if Tookie does not deserve lethal injection then nobody does. I will be glad when Wednesday arrives.

[Vinnie]

.....In a split second, it becomes irrelevant as a car full of Bloods pours a few pounds of red-hot lead into Tookie. Still a big guy, it takes quite a few hits to put him down. But fall he does: just another dead Crip.

Can you put that to song?
Maybe to 'Imagine'. g

[Frank_2001]

He'll probably open a bottle of Old Night Train and smoke a blunt;)