January 1, 2006
Tookie and the Terminator
By Pat Buchanan
What is it about the fate of convicted killer Stanley "Tookie"
Williams that so engrossed the Hollyleft and Euroleft?
A founder of the Crips, a Los Angeles criminal gang whose record
of murder, rape and robbery makes Al Capone's Cicero crowd look
like the Lavender Hill Mob, Tookie was convicted in 1979 of the
cold-blooded killing of four innocent people in a pair of robberies.
Albert Owens, a 26-year-old Whittier, Calif., 7-Eleven employee,
was shotgunned to death. Days later, an elderly Asian couple who
ran a motel, Yen-I Yang and Thsai-Shai Yang, and their 43-year-old
daughter, Yee Chen Lin, all got the same treatment.
Convicted of the four murders, Tookie never repented, but protested
his innocence right up to the end. He did, however, author children's
books to teach black youth to avoid gangs and violence. Whether
Tookie had a ghost-writer remains in dispute.
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger had played no role in Tookie's death
sentence, but was implored to commute it. After studying the record,
however, Schwarzenegger was convinced of two facts: First, Tookie
Williams was a cold-blooded killer. Second, Tookie, 25 years later,
was still lying about it. No repentance, no absolution. "Without
an apology and atonement for these senseless and brutal killings,
there can be no redemption," said Arnold.
So, the governor refused to interrupt the execution of the law
and, on Dec. 13, Tookie departed via lethal injection. His last
request was that he be cremated and his ashes be spread -- across
South Africa.
Yet, by the time of his death, Tookie Williams had become a
legend. His story was made into a cable TV movie, "Redemption,"
starring Jamie Foxx, and he had been nominated for the Nobel Peace
Prize in 2000 for writing against gangs and violence.
Foxx, fellow actor Mike Farrell and Bianca Jagger all pleaded
for clemency. And at his funeral in the 1,500-seat AME Bethel
Church in Los Angeles, Jesse Jackson and Snoop Dogg delivered
eulogies. A TV screen beamed the services to a large crowd in
the parking lot.
Snoop Dogg's eulogy took the form of a poem, "Until We
Meet Again," the most arresting couplet of which was, "It's
nine-fifteen on twelve thirteen/And another black king will be
taken from the scene."
Sort of calls to mind W.H. Auden's "In Memory of W.B. Yeats."
When Snoop Dogg hit his big line, "I don't believe Stan
did it," applause exploded in the parking lot, where a grieving
33-year-old Crips soldier, who identified himself as "Kilowatt
the Third," said of Tookie, "That's my role model ...
the CEO of the Crips." Kilowatt the Third did not indicate
whether he had been impressed with Tookie's late vocation as the
Dr. Seuss of South Central.
But if Tookie's star is rising, Schwarzenegger's is sinking,
and nowhere more so than in his native Austria. In Graz, where
he went to school, Schwarzenegger's name has graced the 15,300-seat
soccer stadium since 1997 -- and now city officials have voted
to remove it.
Arnold beat them to the punch. He told Graz's mayor the city
could no longer use his name and returned an ornate Ring of Honor
given to this most famous American ever to come out of Graz. For
it was there Arnold began the bodybuilding career that took him
to the Mr. Universe title and on to Hollywood as an action-film
star known to the world as The Terminator.
In Europe, where the death penalty has been in bad odor since
Hitler, Arnold is probably less popular than Bush. German Green
Party leader Volker Beck called his refusal to commute Tookie's
sentence "cowardly." A Christian political group in
Graz wants to rename Schwarzenegger Stadium "Tookie Williams
Stadium."
"Mr. Williams had converted and, unlike Mr. Schwarzenegger,
opposed every form of violence," said Richard Schadauer,
chairman of the Association of Christianity and Social Democracy.
According to The New York Times, a separate proposal
was advanced to honor not just Tookie, but his entire extended
family by renaming the stadium "Crips Stadium."
I am not making this up.
Mayor Siegfried Nagl of Graz, who has his eye on the ball, warns
that sweeping de-Schwarzeneggerization of Graz could cost millions
in tourist dollars. Moral indignation is fine, up to a point.
But Arnold's headaches may have just begun. Scheduled for execution
on Jan. 17 is Clarence Ray Allen. In 1980, Clarence strangled
a 17-year-old girl for telling on him for burglarizing a store.
Sent to Folsom Prison for life, Allen ordered the murder of all
eight witnesses against him. But his hit man, while killing one
of the witnesses, also murdered two teenage bystanders.
Allen would seem unlikely to command much sympathy. The problem
for The Terminator is that Allen is 75, blind and a diabetic,
has just suffered a heart attack and needs open-heart surgery.
As he can't walk, they will have to wheel Clarence up to the gurney.
And after him, five more executions are scheduled for 2006.
Arnold may have seen Austria for the last time.
Copyright
2005 Creators Syndicate