|
Once Upon A Time, on December 29, 1953 to be exact, a seventeen-year-old woman gave birth to a child in the City of New Orleans. This was no ordinary child; this was a child that would go on to change the world. Unfortunately, not for the better. His name was Stanley but his friends and the world would end up knowing him better by the middle name that he shared with his father, Tookie.
Early in his life, young Tookie moved from the Big Easy to a place that was anything but easy. It was a scary place for everyone who resided there, but it was even scarier for a young boy, especially one saddled with a name like Tookie. It was the mean streets of South Central Los Angeles and life was tough growing up.
But Tookie grew up to meet the challenge of the streets head on, not by volunteering at a local mission, or excelling in academia, he chose to make a name for himself as a tough street fighter and as a “general”. The term “general” was a term used for a leader of other street thugs and his reputation grew on the West Side of South Central LA.
Time passed and one day Tookie met Raymond “Truck” Washington. Truck was from the East Side of South Central and the two became fast friends. Together they decided to put together a little club, that in later years early club members swore was formed to assist their combined neighborhoods from the violence of neighboring clubs and to thwart off what they called “police brutality”. Their club was originally called the “Avenue Babies” but was shortly thereafter changed to “Cribs”.
Unfortunately, like many ideas that seemed like a good idea in the beginning, Truck and Tookie found that they had become what they had sworn to fight. Instead of protecting their neighbors they became a virus on their communities. The name of their group changed again. This time not by their choice but by a local newspaper, the Los Angeles Sentinel. When crime victims described their young attackers who carried canes, as if they were crippled, they referred to them as “Crips”.
And the Crips virus spread not content to stay in the city of Los Angeles. More and more smaller clubs soon joined and their numbers grew, reeking havoc in every area it infested. It not only spread throughout the State of California but across the United States. It now has affiliations in South Africa, as if that country didn’t have enough problems. The little engine that could, had. And the world would never be the same.
The bigger the club got, the meaner the members became and so did the neighboring club, a nasty little group of fellows who called themselves the “Bloods”. When the two clubs got together they could never play nice. As a matter of fact, whenever they would meet on the street somebody would end up dead. Kind of like cowboy gunslingers in the Old West, but without the same code of the west.
And when they couldn’t play shoot ‘em up in the city streets they started a new and even more deadly past time. They called it a “drive by” and in more times than not the intended target was missed. This is not surprising since the way this game is played is to take a car full of club members, armed with guns, and open fire on a rival club member’s house and hope that you hit them. Sadly, many times the victims end up being innocent bystanders, including children. I don’t think the cowboys would have approved.
If starting the Crips wasn’t enough for Tookie and Truck to burn in hell for eternity, fate was about to deal them both fatal hands. Let’s just say that the year 1979 was not a good one for the pair. Truck became a victim of the beast he created when he was shot and killed by a rival gang member and Tookie was about to make a decision worse than starting the Crips.
In a two-week span Tookie and some of his club buddies decided it would be a good idea to rob some people to make a little pocket change. First, Tookie, being a “general”, instructed two of his soldiers to rob a Stop’n Go market in Pomona, but when they didn’t go through with it Tookie got really mad. Being the helping and motivational type of guy that he is he picked another spot and told them that he would “show them how to commit a robbery”. What a guy!
He picked a 7-11 on Whittier Boulevard in Pico Rivera, right here in our own backyard. Instead of just the two soldiers going in this time all four club members went in. But it was Tookie who took the clerk, 26 year old Albert Owens, into the back room and shot him twice in the back, execution style, with a sawed off shot gun. This robbery netted the four men the tidy sum of $120.00. I think they could have made more with a paper route.
I guess instruction time was over for Tookie because two weeks later he decided to do the next robbery on his own. This time he chose a hotel. I guess he must have been in a bad mood or something because this time he killed three people. Again, with his trusty sawed off shotgun at point blank range, Tookie killed the 76-year-old owner and his 63-year-old wife. Then, for good measure, he killed their 43-year-old daughter by shooting her in the face. That was not very nice Tookie and certainly not worth the $100.00 you made doing it.
Well kids, everybody knows, well maybe not Tookie, but the rest of us do, that when you kill somebody here in California you have a little thing called the Death Penalty to contend with. And for the last 24 years Tookie has had a date with destiny marked on his calendar and that date is just around the corner.
During his incarceration Tookie has been struggling with his emotions, I am assuming from all the bad things he has done. Either that or the poor accommodations at San Quentin, because shortly after arriving he started assaulting guards, which isn’t a nice thing to do to your new hosts. It also isn’t advisable when they have the ability to put you in what is called solitary confinement, which is where Tookie ended up spending his first six and a half years at San Quentin. In case you aren’t familiar with solitary confinement it’s like getting a real serious timeout from your parents when you’ve done something like shaving the cat.
But while he was in solitary he started feeling really bad about the things he had done. He started trying to make amends by writing
children's books warning them not to get involved with gangs, I mean clubs, because they can lead you down a bad path and to do bad things, like say killing people. After doing this for a few years people began to feel as though Tookie had turned the corner and was rehabilitated and shouldn’t be put to death.
They made a TV movie about him starring Jamie Foxx. A lot of people saw it and with his execution date just around the corner they have all made signs and are hopping up to San Quentin to protest his execution. They, along with celebrities, movie stars, and every special interest group on the face of the planet, will stand at the gates of the prison waving their signs and jumping up and down like bunnies in hopes of a last minute call from the Governor to stop it from happening. Every time there is an execution, which doesn’t happen enough here in California, it is truly a sight.
A sight, unfortunately, Tookie’s victims won’t be able to see. Because you see boys and girls they are still dead. Tookie got to live 24 years longer than they did and has not been man enough to apologize for his crimes to the families of the victims. What could his victims have accomplished in the last 24 years? And in one last injustice to the victims his means of departure will be a peaceful injection in the arm that will put him to sleep instead of being shot in the face point blank with a sawed off shotgun.
Either way kids it’s time for Tookie to have a permanent time out. The End.
|
