Will the execution of Crips founder be a mistake?

Do you think there will be massive rioting? I mean this bloke's gang are more into organised crime than street battles with the police I think. They're more likely to work on a successor than worry about chucking molotov cocktails at the police.

As much as I am against the death penalty (on purely practical grounds) I don't think any jurisdiction can allow itself to base its policy or its legislation in terms of punishment on reaction from a tiny minority of its population.

A lot of the Crips are young, under the age of 18 who have emotional problems. Even though they never knew the guy they will be looking for a reason to cause trouble, they will be angry because their role models in the rap industry will tell them to be angry. They won't really even know why they are mad. Come back to this thread in December. I bet there will be rioting!

Fair points roverroad, they hadn't occurred to me. But I haven't much knowledge of the gang culture. Well I suppose those who do have that knowledge will be preparing for that eventuality although I hope it doesn't come to that.

Not to his victims.

Ah heck, most of his victims were probably just other gange members and addicts anyway. I don't claim to know for sure what he did to be executed. But what about the people who are going to die if there are riots? I'm pro death penalty and I will usually argue for it. But I think in this case it's better to let him rot in prison.

Why don't you idiots even bother to research who the hell you're talking about, before you blather your ignorance for all to see? You obviously know jack-sh*t about Stanley "Tookie" Williams. How the hell do you suppose you can mount a meaningful thread on a subject about which you have obviously not bothered to read?

The reason this is even a large controversy is because Tookie Williams isn't just a former gang-banger. He is a perfect test case for the American and Christian proposition that a human being can be rehabilitated. Once founder of the Crips, he educated himself in prison and went on to begin writing books that persuade children not to seek the gang life. He has been portrayed in a movie on HBO by Jamie Foxx (of Ray fame), and has been nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize for his work several times.

Why don't you gomers just start a thread about something you can at least pretend to have knowledge of.

Snood is quite right. Tookie Williams' claim to fame isn't so much that he was a co-founder of the Crips as that he broke with the gang life and has been very active in trying to persuade adolscents not to go that route.

Goodfielder, these aren't actually 'organized crime' gangs in the sense that we think of the Mafia or the various South and Central American drug cartels. These are almost exclusively gangs of youths, teen-agers who commit crimes of violence, sometimes for personal profit, other times just to be 'wilding', as the expression goes. Crips and Bloods are Los Angeles-based but have affiliates in many American urban centers.

I teach in a detention center for youthful offenders. I can vouch for the fact that the proposed execution of Williams is currently a subject of heated conversation and discussion among the youth, even here on the opposite coast of the USA (Boston, to be precise). Whether it will lead to actual large-scale rioting on the West Coast (or anywhere else, for that matter) is subject to debate. But given who williams is, it's certainly not out of the question.

On the other hand, despite the man's apparent total rehabilitation, he did (self-admittedly) commit a couple of pretty brutal and heartless murders in his earlier career.

ahh so it takes a person to go to prison first to finaly see the light......and whys that may I ask?
IMO opinion he just left it a bit too late!

Snood, I really don't care about what he did or has done since his crimes. The guy means nothing to me. I'm only concerned about what will happen in the streets if he is executed given his popularity, and your anger in your post only proved my point! Just wait until he is executed and see how pissed off you are...

I grew up surounded by black gangs. Crips only care about one thing. Money & bitches. You can't sling crack and pimp hoes rioting. Theres no money in it. They don't give a **** about Tookie.

Amigo, Well, that's a good point. But it's not just the gangs, what set the people off during the Rodney King riots, it was a political injustice, and I think a lot of young people are going to see this the same way.

By the way Snood, you can't rehabilitate a murderer. The people that he killed don't get a do over, so why should he. Let him rot in prison.

Yea, your right.

Well hell, Rover - since you have the Solomon-like wisdom and discernment to decide who can and cannot be rehabilitated, why don't you give us the whole rundown, so we don't have to guess? How about child molesters? Wife beaters? Burglars? Jaywalkers?

Give us a sign, oh Yoda-like one.

Why the nastiness? Can't we all just get along?

I don't woe anyone any explanations, but I get nasty about things that I think deserve some nastiness. In this case, the casual dismissal of a man's fight simply to live out his life writing productive children's books in prison.

Everyone gets heated about things close to their heart. Even you.

Hey, what gives. I didn't write that.

Well, I (a) am against the death penalty, and (b) would take it on a case by case basis if I were in favor of killing prisoners. In this case, I would agree with Snood that the man should be allowed to continue his writing.

That's right. You didn't. Roverroad did, as I say in my post. The hamsters fukked this one up, not I.