49 Facts About Tookie Williams

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

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

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

Tookie Williams recalled that, as a child, he would hang out in abandoned houses and vacant lots around his neighborhood in South Central where he would watch adults get drunk, abuse drugs, gamble and engage in dog fights.

Tookie Williams stated that after the adults finished the dog fighting they would make the children fight each other, including himself.

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Tookie Williams began to participate in these street fights regularly as a child, where adults would bet on him and give him part of the proceeds for winning his fights.

Tookie Williams was often the target of older bullies and street thugs in his neighborhood and, by the age of twelve, began carrying a switchblade in order to protect himself.

Tookie Williams was expelled from George Washington Preparatory High School and was blackballed by several other high schools in the South Central area for fighting, and eventually began doing stints in Central Juvenile Hall.

Increasingly violent youth gangs formed in their place, which Tookie Williams initially despised as predatory but because of his viciousness and willingness to fight older youths Tookie Williams earned the respect of many gangsters on the West Side.

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

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

In 1969, at age sixteen, Tookie 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, Tookie Williams was approached by Raymond Washington at Washington Preparatory High School after hearing of Tookie 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 Tookie Williams, and proposed they use their influence in their respective regions to form the larger Crips street gang.

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

Tookie Williams began to live an ironic double life, where 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, Tookie Williams was wounded in a drive-by shooting while sitting on the porch of his house in Compton.

Tookie 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.

Tookie 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 Tookie Williams with money and drugs, particularly Quaaludes, barbiturates or marijuana.

Tookie 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.

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

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

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

Tookie 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 Tookie Williams and Coward drove to the home of James Garret.

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

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Darryl and Tookie 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 Tookie Williams, entered the store with the apparent intention of robbing it.

Tookie 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.

Inside the office, Tookie Williams allegedly shot and killed Yen-Yi, Tsai-Shai, and Yu-Chin, after which he emptied the cash register and fled the scene.

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

Tookie 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.

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

Tookie 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, Tookie Williams continued to associate with Crips members in prison.

Tookie 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, Tookie Williams said, "Sons of bitches" in a voice sufficiently loud that the court reporter included it in the trial transcript.

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

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

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

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

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

Tookie 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 Tookie Williams showed no resistance as he was led into the execution chamber.

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

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

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

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

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

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