Tookie Williams

Stanley "Tookie" Williams was executed early this morning at San Quentin Penitentiary.

There is a lot of hoohah about the Govenator's refusal to grant clemency and I have to say that I feel bad for the guy. No matter which decision he made, he was going to catch flak. I think in the end he just wanted to rely on the facts, which was that Williams had been treated to due process and there was nothing solid that refuted that he was indeed guilty of the 1979 murders.

I usually don't have any problem with the death penalty- not that I'm a big "give 'em what they deserve" kind of person, but I feel that if someone is a murderer, they are a threat to society in general, and as such, need to be eliminated. I also don't believe a word about Tookie's supporters' claims of his innocence. He was a *GD* gang member. In fact, at the time of these crimes, he was THE Gang Member. Of course he killed those people. There is no doubt in my mind.

But as human beings, we have to believe in redemption and forgiveness. The man has done a lot since then. The statistics about kids he has saved from gangs speak for themselves in my opinion. As the OG himself, there was nobody in a better position to speak to kids facing the decisions that those kids face. And it's so stinking easy for us to sit in our upper-middle class suburban homes at our $2000 laptop and talk about inner-city youth when we have absolutely no idea what it is like for kids thinking about joining a gang because they would be getting a "family" (because they don't have a dad and their pregnant mom is home passed out on crack and they're not even sure how or if they're related to the other people living at their house) for the first time. "College" is not a word in these kids' vocabulary.

I don't believe Tookie posed a threat to society for the last years of his life and I think he could have continued to do good for the rest of his life had he been granted clemency.

I take comfort in the vestiges of Catholic training still thriving in the cobwebby corners of my mind.

I'm sure St. Peter took Tookie in at the Pearly Gates this morning.

I'm sure Tookie found peace this morning, perhaps for the first time.