Don't Execute Co-Founder of Crips

Stanley “Tookie” Williams, 51, co-founded the notorious Crips gang in Los Angeles. Their ongoing feud with the Bloods has cost thousands of lives, decimated a once-proud community and poisoned it with drugs. He has been on San Quentin’s death row for over a quarter of a century and the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals just denied his latest appeal. On June 2nd his lawyers will petition the United States Supreme Court though rarely do they intervene in capital cases.

Why should you care?

Because, amazingly, Mr. Williams has dedicated the last twenty years of his life to stopping at-risk kids from making the same mistakes he did. From his prison cell on death row he has written ten children’s books cautioning kids against joining a gang and has received tens of thousands of emails from children and former gang members thanking him for helping them leave the life. You might have seen the movie made about his life, Redemption, starring Jamie Foxx, which aired on the F/X channel last year. In fact, Bloods and Crips, brutally warring in Newark, New Jersey, after seeing the film on his life, went to his website, downloaded his peace protocol and engineered their own truce. For Mr. Williams’ good works he has been nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize by the Swiss nominating committee several years in a row.

If the Supreme Court refuses to hear the case, which is likely, he will be scheduled for execution next fall.

He should not be.

Whatever your beliefs on capital punishment, let’s look at the greater good here. Gang violence comes out of the persistent nihilism of youths without hope. In South Central LA kids grow up with death as a part of life, their childhood replaced by persistent tension and fear. Stanley Williams knows that world, he and his gang helped create that world, and now he has dedicated more than half of his life to changing it. If the state of California executes him, what message does that send to the kid on the fence about joining a gang or already in one but trying to find the courage to quit? It tells them, just as they suspected, that the state sees them as animals and wishes their eradication. If you don’t believe in the possible redemption of a criminal class then the only other solution is their perpetual incarceration or extermination.

What can be done?

We can all sign this petition and also email Governor Schwarzenegger to grant Mr. Williams clemency. No, that doesn’t mean that he walks. It simply means that his sentence is commuted to life without the possibility of parole so he can continue trying to undo all the evil that he has done and give hope to those without any.