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Reporter's Eyewitness Account of Allen's Execution
San Francisco Chronicle ^ | January 17, 2006 | Kevin J. Fagan

Posted on 01/17/2006 9:28:37 AM PST by KingofZion

The oldest man to ever enter California's execution chamber met his doom Tuesday the way he'd wanted to: With the faint lilt of Native American chants ringing in the air around him, and loved ones mouthing "I love you" to him as his damaged vision slowly faded to black.

A symbolic Indian feather lay on quadruple murderer Clarence Ray Allen's chest for the entire 33-minute execution, rising and falling until the lethal poisons piped into his veins through intravenous tubes stopped his breathing and he at last lay completely still.

"Hoka Hey, (an Indian saying meaning) it's a good day to die," Allen, who turned 76 on Monday, wrote in his last statement.

Those whose lives he savaged by ordering up the shotgun deaths of their loved ones in Fresno in 1980 looked as if they couldn't have agreed more.

Patricia Pendergrass, whose 27-year-old brother Bryon Schletewitz died when Allen's hitman blasted him in the head, kept her hands clenched together and her lips pursed tightly from start to finish -- and then, as the official notice of his death was read off, she allowed herself the slightest hint of a smile. Five chairs to her right in the ring of witnesses sitting at a railing alongside the death chamber, prosecutor Ward Campbell lifted his chin as if in victory.

"Mr. Allen finally received the justice he deserved tonight," Campbell said a half-hour after the execution. "I was always confident this day would come. I am just very glad to have it finally be done."

MORE ***

(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...


TOPICS: Crime/Corruption; News/Current Events; US: California
KEYWORDS: allen; capitalpunishment; clarencerayallen; deathpenalty; execution; protestors; tookie
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To: steelcurtain
Meka Leka Hi Meka Hiney Ho


LOL!
41 posted on 01/17/2006 10:30:45 AM PST by macamadamia (The great dangerous non-sequitur du jour: oil-independence will stop terrorism.)
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To: KingofZion
Isn't this article written by the same Kevin J. Fagan that claimed to have seen a tear gently roll down "Tookie" Williams' cheek?

I SMELL AGENDA. Well, more accurately, I smell the Stench that is San Francisco...

42 posted on 01/17/2006 10:32:16 AM PST by detsaoT (run bsd)
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To: BunnySlippers
"... It sounds like he wasn't perhaps as incapacitated as it seemed ... and that his "Indian" attributes were picked up while in prison."

So it appears. The warden says that the allegedly 'legally blind', 'nearly deaf', and incapacitated wheelchair-bound Allen has been walking around his cell reading his own mail for months prior to the execution. His hearing was good enough that he could identify those in the witness chamber who called out to him as he rose under his own power to get to the gurney.

When he entered prison, he was a 'White man' and then later embraced his part Indian heritage so that his supporters in the anti-Capital Punishment movement could refer to him as a 'person of color'.

43 posted on 01/17/2006 10:38:06 AM PST by The KG9 Kid (Semper Fi!)
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To: KingofZion
"(2) HE WAS NOT AN INDIAN. His intake form said "white" - the whole native american routine was again concocted years later by his lawyers. No doubt he had some choctow blood, but he didn't discover his "heritage" until late in the game.

Please re-read my post and you will see that my comments were meant to be sarcasm.

I wouldn't trust any word that came out of that scumbag's mouth!

44 posted on 01/17/2006 10:41:05 AM PST by albee ("Those that bite the hand that feeds them will lick the boot that kicks them!" - Eric Hoffer)
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To: Melas
Point taken, but it's not the criminal that elicits the emotions you're reading. It's the debate over the issue of capital punishment.

I think that it's not so much a celebration of a criminal's demise, but another 'victory' (if you will) over the anti-capital punishment activists.

It's their way of insulting them back.

45 posted on 01/17/2006 10:49:51 AM PST by The KG9 Kid (Semper Fi!)
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To: steelcurtain

I prefer "Gabba Gabba Hey."


46 posted on 01/17/2006 10:52:50 AM PST by dfwgator
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To: Semper Paratus

It was reported yesterday that he enjoyed a last meal of KFC chicken nuggets, buffalo meat, and some other items. My sources tell me he only took one bite from each item and pronounced it "good."

Hopefully they did not waste the remaining food but saved some taxpayer $$ by recycling it for some of his death row buddies.


47 posted on 01/17/2006 12:04:51 PM PST by KingofZion
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To: detsaoT
Isn't this article written by the same Kevin J. Fagan that claimed to have seen a tear gently roll down "Tookie" Williams' cheek? I SMELL AGENDA. Well, more accurately, I smell the Stench that is San Francisco...

Not only that, but he continues to call the administered drugs "poisons". They are not poisons, but drugs that are regularly administered in medicinal use (thiopental, for oral surgery; muscle relaxer, etc.) They just aren't used in lethal doses in everyday life. His bias seeps out just in the descriptions he uses.

48 posted on 01/17/2006 3:40:01 PM PST by Christian4Bush (Over THREE THOUSAND PEOPLE lost their 'civil liberties' on September 11, 2001.)
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To: Christian4Bush

There are good arguments against the death penalty, but this old scumbag is the best argument for the death penalty , as he successfully murdered three people whilst in jail.


49 posted on 01/17/2006 8:54:49 PM PST by at bay
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To: KingofZion
It was reported yesterday that he enjoyed a last meal of KFC chicken nuggets

Honey mustard or BBQ? Inquiring minds ...

50 posted on 01/17/2006 9:03:02 PM PST by BunnySlippers
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To: BunnySlippers

sweet and short, er, sour


51 posted on 01/19/2006 4:51:44 PM PST by at bay
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To: Joe 6-pack

I love it! I used to have a copy of that post card too. Bought it in Mojave, CA around 1968.


52 posted on 01/19/2006 5:15:12 PM PST by Inyo-Mono (Life is like a cow pasture, it's hard to get through without stepping in some mess. NRA.)
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