TOOKIE'S TIME RUNNING OUT CLEMENCY OR EXECUTION FOR CONVICTED KILLER?

Byline: Josh Kleinbaum Staff Writer

Punkin McNair will try anything to warn his students at Bell Gardens High School away from gangs, and the story of Stanley ``Tookie'' Williams provides the perfect vehicle.

McNair built a curriculum for his English class based on the books written by Williams, widely reputed to be a founding member of the notorious Crips street gang who is scheduled to die by lethal injection on Dec. 13 for murdering four people in 1979. The nine-book series, titled ``Tookie Speaks Out Against Gangs,'' won Williams widespread praise and literary awards, including nominations for both the Nobel Peace Prize and the Nobel Prize for Literature.

``Here's somebody that's true-to-life from the 'hood,'' McNair said. ``He's from similar streets that we've walked today. And look at what he's done. That lets you know that it's never too late.''

Less than 20 miles away, Larry Sabala of Torrance is still haunted by images of the shotgun slayings he saw while sitting on the jury that convicted Williams of the murder of convenience-store worker Albert Owens, 26, and motel owners Yen-I Yang, 76, and Tsai-Shai Yang, 63, and their daughter Yee-Chen Lin, 43, during separate robberies.

Sabala, 63, and his fellow jurors recommended the death penalty, and now nearly 25 years later he still believes Williams deserves to die.

``What do you think it looks like when you've been shot at close range with a 12-gauge shotgun? It's not pretty.''

These are the two lives of Tookie Williams, whose impending execution has ignited a firestorm of debate around the nation about the death penalty in general, and in particular whether Williams should be granted clemency.

Death penalty opponents and gang members have united to fight for Williams' life, touting his role as a teacher and a mentor trying to steer children away from gangs and violence.

They've formed the Save Tookie Committee, staging rallies attended by the likes of the Rev. Jesse Jackson, Snoop Dogg and Jamie Foxx, who played Williams in a movie about his life.

The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People will hold a Save Tookie Williams Tour on Tuesday, featuring press conferences and rallies in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Sacramento and San Diego. More than 30,000 people have signed a Save Tookie petition at his Web site, www.tookie.com.

But others maintain he's an unrepentant career criminal whose refusal to apologize for the murders - or even acknowledge his participation in the execution-style slayings - demonstrates his inhumanity and bolsters the arguments for his execution.

District Attorney Steve Cooley, Sheriff Lee Baca and Los Angeles Police Chief William Bratton all oppose clemency. Hosts on talk radio station KFI-AM 640 have crusaded against Williams, prompting a complaint to the Federal Communications Commission by Williams' supporters alleging racism.

With all of Williams' legal appeals exhausted, his fate lies with Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. The governor has scheduled a closed-door meeting for Thursday, when Williams' attorneys will argue that his behavior behind bars makes up for his life of violence on the streets of Los Angeles.

Stanley Tookie Williams III was born Dec. 29, 1953, in Shreveport, La. He was named for his father - Tookie is his given middle name, not a nickname - but raised by his mother, who gave birth to him when she was 17.

In an effort to escape the poverty and crime in Louisiana, his mother moved to California in 1959, settling in South Los Angeles.

In his popular memoir, ``Blue Rage, Black Redemption,'' Williams said kids needed a fight-or-flight mentality to survive the streets of South L.A. He chose to fight, and did often.

``I felt trapped,'' he wrote in the book, which is on four-week backorder on Amazon.com. ``My mother's attempts to rescue us from a disordered society caused us to jump out of one fire into a hotter one.''

After several stints in juvenile hall, Williams joined a gang in the early 1970s, while a 17-year-old student at Washington High School.

Details of the early years of the Crips are hazy, but some experts dispute reports that Williams was a co-founder of the notorious gang. However, there has never been any question he was an influential early member of the Crips as well as right-hand man to Raymond Washington, the gang's leader.

John Quicker, a professor at California State University, Dominguez Hills, said Williams was introduced to the Crips in 1971 or '72, after watching a schoolyard argument between a lone classmate and a group of several other students. Impressed with his classmate's fearlessness, Williams told him he would have taken his side if a fight had erupted, Quicker said.

``The person said, `Don't worry about it, I can take care of it,''' said Quicker, a gang expert who has interviewed several members of the early Crips.

``The next day, this person came back with Raymond and the boys and a whole bunch of Crips and put it to the gang that gave him the hassle in the first place. Tookie was so impressed with the power demonstrated by Raymond and the fledgling Crips that he threw his towel in with Raymond.''

Williams and Washington became fast friends, and Williams quickly built a reputation on the street for his toughness, fearlessness and charisma.

He spent time lifting weights at Venice Beach, often going shirtless to show off his powerful build. To look even more menacing, Williams and other Crips would often walk around with Doberman pinschers.

``His name, he was legendary,'' said Najee Ali, who grew up near Williams in South Los Angeles and joined the Crips before becoming a community activist.

``His body was built like a Greek god. He was known as a man without fear. He was almost a mythic figure. He had these great myths, like Paul Bunyan and the Abominable Snowman.

``But most people just hear tales about Paul Bunyan. Tookie, he really existed.''

The Crips emerged in the '70s as a dominant gang in Los Angeles. As guns became more easily available - especially after the Vietnam War, when many soldiers returned with weapons - the level of gang violence escalated.

``With more guns, there's more shooting, there's more killing and there's more retaliation,'' said Malcolm Klein, a USC professor and gang expert.

On Feb. 28, 1979, Albert Owens was slain during a robbery at a 7-Eleven store in Pico Rivera where he was a clerk. Owens was taken into a back room, forced to lie down and shot twice in the back with a shotgun. The robbery netted about $120.

On March 11, 1979, the Yangs were killed during the robbery of the Brookhaven Motel on South Vermont Avenue - a crime that netted the robber about $100. Like the robbery two weeks earlier, the family members were shot at close range with a shotgun.

Although no physical evidence directly linked Williams to the killings, police arrested him soon after and built a case against him based on eyewitness' testimony and circumstantial evidence.

Williams and his supporters argue that the bulk of the testimony used to convict him came from questionable sources - jailhouse informants and criminals looking for leniency.

But Sabala said he and his fellow jurors had no trouble reaching a verdict. They convicted Williams in 1981 of four counts of murder with special circumstances and recommended the death penalty, a decision affirmed by the trial judge. Every state and federal court up to the U.S. Supreme Court has upheld the conviction.

``It was quite obvious he was guilty,'' Sabala said. ``It wasn't even close. To have eyewitnesses to the actual murder, one of the participants, plus they have the gun involved in it and they matched the shells, that was quite obvious.''

Sabala still remembers the gruesome images from the crime-scene photographs, bodies lying in the blood-spattered motel room, Lin shot in the face.

``I'd love to sit in at his execution,'' Sabala said. ``I'd even go so far as to push both plungers and put the liquid into his veins. Let's see if he's as tough when he dies as he was when he killed those people.''

During his first 12 years on San Quentin's Death Row, Williams remained the violent gangster he had been on the streets of L.A.

Prosecutors and prison officials said he beat other inmates, attacked guards and led the Crips gang that operated inside the prison. In 1988, after prison officials believed he ordered the stabbing of another inmate, he was placed in a 9-by-3-foot cell commonly known as ``The Hole.''

There, he had an epiphany.

``I think he hit rock bottom,'' said Phil Gasper, a death penalty opponent and professor at Notre Dame de Namur University who befriended Williams about five years ago. ``That isolation, he had nowhere to go and nothing much to think about except his own life.''

It was at this point, supporters say, that Williams renounced his gang lifestyle and dedicated his life to spreading an anti-gang message.

The best way to do it, he thought, was through children's books.

He told this plan to Barbara Becnel, a journalist who'd interviewed him at San Quentin in 1992 for a book on gangs. Becnel was initially suspicious, but she encouraged him to pursue his idea.

In 1993, Williams offered to try to help broker a peace between the Crips and their fiercest street rivals, the Bloods.

He videotaped a message at San Quentin that was shown to a group of 400 gang members at a summit in Watts in April 1993. With Williams' help, the truce was reached, and by 1996 authorities reported a 25 percent drop in gang-related homicides in Los Angeles County.

The summit convinced Becnel that Williams was legitimate.

``I saw the impact of his words,'' Becnel said. ``When I saw his voice was a respected voice, I thought, this is of value, and I need to do whatever I can.''

Over the next three years, Becnel and Williams teamed up to write eight children's books, all of which were published in 1996, including ``Gangs and Violence,'' ``Gangs and the Abuse of Power,'' ``Gangs and Weapons'' and ``Gangs and Drugs.''

Williams also wrote a ninth book, called ``Life in Prison,'' geared toward middle-school students, which tries to dispel the notion that prison is a rite of passage.

``He could have decided that he was going to write books, but not write them toward kids,'' said McNair, the English teacher at Bell Gardens High School. ``But he said that our youth is the one most affected by it. It's an adult topic written at a children's level.''

The books were important enough to McNair that he read them to his own children. Now, his 8-year-old daughter, Miyah, reads Williams' books to his 2-year-old daughter, Madisun. In Culver City, Cassandra Gonzales, a former gang member who was in juvenile hall nine times between the ages of 12 and 18, reads Williams' books to her 2-year-old daughter, Savannah.

``Gangbangers are not going to listen to some dude with a Ph.D. that lived in white suburbia his whole life,'' said Gonzales, now a student at Santa Monica College. ``There's not any (other) children's books on the shelves about gang violence. I started reading (Williams' books) to my daughter as opposed to the ABCs and 123s.''

Because of the books, Williams has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize five times and the Nobel Prize for Literature once. Gasper submitted four of the nominations for the Peace Prize.

``His influence has been so positive in the last 10 to 12 years, he's worthy of being nominated,'' Gasper said. ``I know quite a few Death Row inmates, but I've never met anyone with the dedication and determination that Stan has.''

Gang experts are mixed over the impact of Williams' work.

Klein is concerned that young teenagers will focus on the books' descriptions of violence instead of the lessons learned from that violence. But Quicker believes Williams has made a difference and can make a greater difference if his sentence is commuted to life in prison without parole.

``Some youngsters look up to him,'' Quicker said. ``If his life was spared, he very well could be an effective force in helping reduce gang violence, and it's already shown that he's capable of doing it. Some of the best evidence comes in his assistance in brokering the 1993 truce.''

Like every other defendant sentenced to death, Williams' case was automatically appealed.

His attorneys have argued that the prosecution's case was based on testimony by unreliable witnesses and shoddy evidence and that the Los Angeles Police Department and the justice system are racist.

The appeals have been unilaterally rejected by the California Supreme Court, federal trial and appellate courts and the U.S. Supreme Court.

On Oct. 11, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected an appeal claiming that the prosecutor used racist tactics in the trial. The California Supreme Court rejected an appeal last Wednesday claiming that poor forensic tests contributed to Williams' convictions.

Now, only Schwarzenegger can prevent Williams' execution.

In his 2005 memoir, ``Blue Rage, Black Redemption,'' Williams said he met Schwarzenegger on the weight lifting circuit of Venice Beach in the 1970s - a claim Schwarzenegger disputes. But they both frequented Muscle Beach, so it is possible.

Their lives have diverged from the Muscle Beach days. Now, with Williams set to be executed in nine days, their paths have crossed again. Schwarzenegger is said to be agonizing over the decision.

``I want to make sure I make the right decision,'' Schwarzenegger has said. ``We are dealing with a person's life.''

Josh Kleinbaum, [phone]

josh.kleinbaum(at)dailynews.com

LIFE OR DEATH

Should Stanley Tookie Williams live or die?

Arguments for clemency:

--Williams maintains his innocence.

--Since 1993, Williams has dedicated his life to spreading an anti-gang message, including writing nine children's books and a memoir. He also has mentored at-risk youth through phone calls and visits at San Quentin State Prison.

--From prison, Williams videotaped an anti-violence message that helped the Crips and the Bloods reach a historic treaty in 1993. His peace protocol, posted on his Web site, www.tookie.com, gives instructions for other gangs to broker similar treaties.

--Executing Williams for his crimes only perpetuates the ideology of revenge killings - the same ideology that leads to retaliatory gang killings.

Arguments against clemency:

--Williams was convicted for brutally murdering four people during two robberies that netted a total of $220. His conviction has been upheld by the California Supreme Court, federal trial and appeal courts and the U.S. Supreme Court.

--Williams was a key figure in the growth of the Crips, one of the most violent and notorious street gangs in America. Thousands of people have died due to gang violence at the hands of the Crips.

--Because he maintains his innocence in the four murders committed in 1979, Williams has not apologized for them. Without responsibility or remorse, he does not deserve mercy.

--Despite renouncing the gang lifestyle, Williams refuses to be debriefed by prison authorities and police about the Crips. He refuses to share knowledge that officials believe could help reduce gang violence.

CAPTION(S):

3 photos, box

Photo:

(1) Jamie Foxx, who played Stanley Tookie Williams in the movie ``Redemption,'' is one of the celebrities who has rallied to Williams' defense in his bid for clemency.

Associated Press

(2 -- color) Stanley Tookie Williams, at age 29, shows off his physique in the yard at San Quentin.

(3 -- color) Williams, shown in the visiting area at San Quentin, is scheduled to be executed on Dec. 13.

Box:

LIFE OR DEATH (see text)