Why Did Ex-Gang Leader Tookie Williams Get Death, While Manson and BTK Killer Got Life

At least that’s what everyone has been asking here in Memphis, TN according to MemphisRap.com sources who report that an alarming number of listeners called in to FM station Power 99 Memphis this morning appalled and extremely disturbed at the execution

December 13, 2005 – (Memphis, TN) At least that’s what everyone has been asking here in Memphis, TN according to MemphisRap.com sources who report that an alarming number of listeners called in to FM station Power 99 Memphis this morning appalled and extremely disturbed at the execution, targeting their anger at California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. Stanley Tookie Williams, the co-founder of the Crips street gang who was put to death for the 1979 murders of 4 in L.A., seemingly was far beyond rehabilitating himself in prision. He maintained his innocence right up until his death, even when admitting to the crimes would have saved him from execution. But to those who are appalled and angered at the execution, it is not so much that Tookie never admitted to guilt or even that he was executed 21 years after being in prison; or even the fact that he was nominated numerous times for the Nobel Peace Prize but more shocking to everyone is the fact that some of the most notorious killers including Charles Manson, Jeffrey Dahmer and Dennis Rader the BTK Killer [standing for Bind, Torture, Kill] (sentenced to 175 years) were given life sentences while Tookie Williams was sentenced to death.

Williams was executed by means of lethal injection witnessed by over 40 people at 12:35 a.m. Tuesday at California’s San Quentin State Prison, where Tookie spent nearly half of his life, after Schwarzenegger denied Williams’ request for clemency even though the gang founder and convicted murderer claimed his innocence and even convinced over 50,000 people to sign petitions asking that he not be executed. Neither the courts nor the California governor were persuaded. Schwarzenegger suggested that Williams’ supposed change of heart was not genuine because he had not shown any real remorse for the killings committed by the Crips.

It seems that America does not agree as many have publicly voiced their anger and disgust at the execution while others, some even kids, have written letters by the thousands. Even Europeans in Schwarzenegger’s native Austria, who regard the practice as barbaric, are outraged and called for his name to be removed from a sports stadium in his hometown. Leaders of Austria’s pacifist Green Party went as far as to call for Schwarzenegger to be stripped of his Austrian citizenship but was quickly rejected by Chancellor Wolfgang Schuessel despite his government’s opposition to the death penalty, according to press.

We want to know what do you, our readers, think? Was the execution, and decision of no clemency for Tookie Williams the right decision? Should Tookie have taken the blame and should he have been denied clemency for the killings committed by the gang he allegedly founded, the Crips? And why Did Ex Gang Leader Tookie Williams (Oscar Award Winner) Get Death, While Manson and BTK Killer Got Life?