54 Facts About Stanley Williams

Stanley Tookie Williams III was an American gangster who co-founded and led the Crips gang in Los Angeles.

Stanley Williams was born on December 29,1953, in Shreveport, Louisiana.

Stanley Williams's father abandoned the family when Williams was one year old.

In 1959, Stanley Williams moved with his mother, Louisiana Stanley Williams, to Los Angeles, California and settled in the city's South Central region.

Stanley Williams says that he was often paid a couple dollars after dogfights to take care of the injured dogs.

Stanley Williams was occasionally paid to participate in these street fights as a young man.

Stanley Williams was expelled from George Washington Preparatory High School and denied entry by several other high schools in the South Central area because he was "intimidating".

Increasingly violent youth gangs formed in their place, which Stanley Williams initially despised as predatory.

Stanley Williams soon earned the clique's respect after beating up one of their members for insulting his mother.

Stanley Williams became the unofficial leader of this clique as his violent reputation began to spread across South Central.

In 1969, aged 15, Stanley Williams was arrested in Inglewood for car theft and was sent to the Los Padrinos Juvenile Hall in Downey.

Shortly after his release from prison, Stanley Williams was approached by Raymond Washington at Washington Preparatory High School after hearing of Stanley Williams through a mutual friend of both young men.

Washington was from South Central's East Side, where he was a prominent gangster similar to Stanley Williams, and proposed they use their influence in their respective regions to form the larger Crips street gang.

Stanley Williams stated he founded the Crips not with the intention of eliminating other gangs, but to create a force powerful enough to protect local black people from racism, corruption and brutality at the hands of the police.

Stanley Williams formed the West Side Crips using his own influence, having befriended many clique leaders and street thugs on the West Side.

Stanley Williams began to live an ironic double life in which he worked in a legal job as an anti-gang youth counselor in Compton while serving as the overboss for one of the largest gangs in Los Angeles.

In 1976, Stanley Williams was wounded in a drive-by shooting while sitting on the porch of his house in Compton.

Stanley Williams was told by doctors that he would never walk again, but after a nearly year-long process of physical rehabilitation and an intense workout regimen, he ultimately regained his ability to walk.

Stanley Williams had begun dabbling in street drugs around the age of twelve, and as a preteen befriended a neighborhood pimp who, in return for performing errands for him, would reward Stanley Williams with money and drugs, particularly Quaaludes, barbiturates or marijuana.

Stanley Williams lost his counseling job in 1977 after being implicated in a robbery that was committed by two youths from a group home that Williams supervised.

Stanley Williams was denied an opportunity to compete in an amateur bodybuilding contest after it was discovered that he was a gang leader.

In 1981, Stanley Williams was convicted of four counts of murder committed in two of three separate incidents.

Stanley Williams always maintained his innocence, though subsequent court reviews concluded that there was no compelling reason to grant a retrial.

The prosecution stated that Stanley Williams met with a man identified in court documents only as "Darryl" late on Tuesday evening, February 28,1979.

Stanley Williams introduced Darryl to friends of his, Alfred "Blackie" Coward and to Bernard "Whitie" Trudeau, and a short time after the initial meeting, Darryl, driving a brown station wagon and accompanied by Stanley Williams and Coward drove to the home of James Garret.

Stanley Williams frequently stayed and kept some possessions at Garret's home, including a 12-gauge shotgun, and after about 10 minutes inside, Stanley Williams returned with the shotgun.

Darryl and Stanley Williams entered the station wagon, Coward and Sims entered another vehicle, and then embarked on the freeway.

The first incident occurred at a nearby Stop-N-Go supermarket, where Darryl and Sims, at the request of Stanley Williams, entered the store with the apparent intention of robbing it.

Stanley Williams had shot at a security monitor and then killed Owens, shooting him twice in the back at point-blank range as he lay prone on the storage room floor.

Stanley Williams then emptied the cash register and fled the scene.

Witnesses testified that Stanley Williams referred to the victims in conversations with friends as "Buddha-heads".

Stanley Williams was convicted in 1981 of all four murders with aggravating circumstances on each count of felony murder as well as multiple murder in the case of the Brookhaven event.

Stanley Williams' gun was found in the home of a couple with whom he occasionally stayed.

Stanley Williams' lawyers have claimed that the District Attorney quashed a murder investigation in exchange for their testimony.

Critics claim that although he renounced gangs and apologized for his role in co-founding the Crips, Stanley Williams continued to associate with Crips members in prison.

Stanley Williams' lawyers claimed that he was convicted by a jury that had no African-Americans, one Latino, one Filipino-American, and 10 White Americans.

The trial record shows that after the jurors returned their guilty verdicts, Stanley Williams said, "Sons of bitches" in a voice sufficiently loud that the court reporter included it in the trial transcript.

In October 1988, Stanley Williams was stabbed in the neck and seriously injured by Tiequon Cox in San Quentin State Prison.

Stanley Williams appealed his conviction in the state courts and filed a petition in the federal courts for habeas corpus relief.

In early November 2005, Stanley Williams' attorneys filed his formal petition for executive clemency, as well as a motion to obtain new evidence.

Supporters of Stanley Williams made another plea directly to Governor Schwarzenegger to stay the execution.

On December 13,2005, sixteen days away from his 52nd birthday, after exhausting all forms of appeal, Stanley Williams was executed by lethal injection at San Quentin State Prison.

Stanley Williams was the 12th person to be executed by the state of California following the 1976 US Supreme Court decision of Gregg v Georgia.

Stanley Williams provided no last words to the prison warden, but in an interview on WBAI Pacifica radio hours before the execution, he stated:.

Witnesses described the mood in the execution chamber as somber, and Stanley Williams showed no resistance as he was led into the execution chamber.

Stanley Williams's advocate and editor Barbara Becnel was a witness to his execution.

Stanley Williams shed one silent tear but otherwise showed no emotion as he was executed.

The most notable thing was that Stanley Williams had supporters at the back of the room.

Stanley Williams directed Becnel to receive his body and Becnel began making the funeral arrangements.

Stanley Williams' body was laid out for viewing on December 19,2005, and drew 2,000 mourners.

Stanley Williams' funeral filled the 1,500-seat Bethel AME Church and drew a wide variety of people from current gang members to celebrities and religious leaders.

At his funeral, the last words of Stanley Williams echoed from a tape played to mourners, whom he asked to spread a message to loved ones:.

Stanley Williams "brought the church to its feet" when he promised to teach Schwarzenegger about redemption.

Stanley Williams said, "I feel it's my duty to go on a worldwide campaign to show that redemption is real", he said.