Posted on 12/08/2005 9:10:24 AM PST by NormsRevenge
SAN FRANCISCO One victim was a young convenience store clerk and military veteran who moved back to California to fight for custody of his daughters. The other three were family members who owned a motel they wanted to sell because the neighborhood had grown rough.
For all four, plans to change their lives were cut short by the sawed-off shotgun of Crips co-founder Stanley Tookie Williams during a pair of 1979 robberies in Los Angeles County that have put him on death row.
Their stories are part of the pitch prosecutors have made to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to deny clemency and let Williams die by lethal injection on Tuesday.
But most of the news coverage has focused on the criminal, not the crime. Family members say too much attention is being paid to Williams and too little is focused on their loved ones who got no second chances, no opportunities to turn their lives around.
With the help of prosecutors and victims' rights advocates, they plan to urge the governor today to consider their loss store clerk Albert Owens, 26, and motel owners Yen-I Yang, 76, and Tsai-Shai Yang, 63, and their daughter Ye-Chen Lin, 43, who left behind shattered families and changed lives.
Williams contends that he's innocent, and his supporters say he is more valuable alive than dead as he works behind bars to keep young people away from gangs.
They want Schwarzenegger to reduce Williams' death sentence to life in prison without parole.
Williams, 51, co-founded the Crips gang in Los Angeles with a high school buddy when he was 17. He has since renounced his gangster past, spoken to community groups by phone from San Quentin State Prison, and co-written a series of children's books warning them about the dangers of a criminal life.
Schwarzenegger has agreed to hear from lawyers on both sides during a private one-hour meeting today. He has received letters from family members who say Williams deserves to die.
Owens' stepmother wrote that Williams caused her family 26 years of anguish. "His just punishment, his execution, could provide us some closure and peace," Lora Owens wrote.
In an interview, she said her husband died in 1995 and that one of his last concerns was justice for his son. "It was on his mind up to the very end," she said. "You just don't forget things like that."
Media efforts to track down surviving Yang family members weren't successful, but the state Attorney General's Office said they support the jury's verdict and oppose clemency.
If this cold-blooded murderer does not die, it will be the end of Arnie. His liberalism is bad enough without making our judicial system and our death penalty any more of a party joke to the criminal and liberal world, than it already is...
He's in a bind. He cannot say "I'm sorry I shot those people" because he's too busy saying "It wasn't me".
Court found him guilty. He was sentenced to death. He won't apologize for the crime, so I see no reason to delay. Fry him.
I live in a shanty in the shantytown.
We have no money so we had to sleep on the ground.
I played the music. My father he dig a ditch.
My mother she do laundry life sure was a bitch.
But 'till we killed the white people. Ooh we gun make them hurt.
Kill the white people yea. But buy my record first.
Ooh yea. Why dont you buy my record?
We sing of freedom and ooh equality.
But we really dont care we just want money money money.
We want to drive in a big black limosine.
Get so high off ganja we cant even see.
and then we kill the white people. Ooh we gunna make them hurt.
Kill the white people. Yea. Ooh but buy my record first ooh.
When u go in the record store. We gunna wait outside.
We gunna hit them in the head with a bat and make them cry.
but 'till we kill the white people.
Yea but buy my record first.
"I also didn't expect the Crips to end up ruining the lives of so many young people, especially young black men who have hurt other young black men. . . . So today I apologize to you all -- the children of America and South Africa -- who must cope every day with dangerous street gangs. I no longer participate in the so-called gangster lifestyle, and I deeply regret that I ever did."
"As a contribution to the struggle to end child-on-child brutality and black-on-black brutality, I have written the Tookie Speaks Out Against Gang Violence children's book series."
This is the substance of his apology and his message. There isn't a word of sympathy for his victims, or other innocent victims of gang crime. His sympathy is for the gang members. He regrets their -- and his own -- self-destruction -- that is all. I think Tookie is still the same racist he was when he murdered whites and Asians in cold blood, laughed about their suffering, and stated that he wanted to kill all whites. Put another way, his "redemption" is really just self-pity -- extended to those he views as being like himself.
We are going to pump (*clap*) you up, with a lethal injection... you won't 'be baaaaaaack'.
The only one left in the room dancing was the black guy in uniform.
So you kill 4 peole write a few books and that makes you elgible for clemency? Right! I think not! He mimicked the guy dying in one of the killings!
What is this quote from?
How many others did this pile of sh t kill, rob, rape? - lethal injection? oh ya - but it should be battery acid.
I'm gonna get me a shotgun and kill all the whities I see,
I'm gonna get me a shotgun and kill all the whities I see.
When I kill all the whities I see, then whitey he won't bother me,
I'm gonna get me a shotgun and kill all the whities I see.
IS THIS ONE OF TOOKIE'S EXAMPLES OF HIS "MUST READ" POETRY?
eDDIE MURPHY -snl
Not to mention, he STILL isn't accepting responsibility for his crimes. The old "It wasn't me" defense. If he were truly reformed, he would admit it, and ask for mercy.
This guy is a waste of skin, and needs to be gone, period.
Tookie didn't just kill 4 people. He is also responsible for the lives of all those the Crips murdered.
On the one hand, I oppose granting clemency in this case.
On the other hand, I absolutely support allowing Tookie Williams to present the case for granting clemency, and I would expect any governor to review that clemency plea carefully before making the final decision.
I expect the governor to weigh the moral consequences of taking a life more carefully than the murderer did.
Arnie better side with the victims families on this or he is through. He might as well just walk out of the mansion right now cause his career in politics will be over not to mention the loss of respect that he will feel from the American people. He better do the right thing and...I think he knows it too. This is going to be very interesting. All I know is Arnie knows what this prisoner did and the lives he took away and the lives this prisoner destroyed not to mention the pain, heartache and suffering on the parts of the victims and then their families. There is only one way Arnie can go on this and I hope to God he moves that direction and makes that decision. Do the right thing Arnie...we're all watching!!!
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