Interview With Crips Co-Founder

* On Aug. 22 I read Barbara Becnel’s interview of Stanley (Tookie) Williams (Opinion) and was shocked that nowhere in the article does Becnel mention the historical fact that Stanley Williams is on death row because he murdered four people in 1979.

I have represented the state on Stanley Williams’ appeal, which has been pending since he received his sentence of death in 1981. Becnel’s attempt to portray Williams as a gentle giant who now writes children’s books, who “speaks softly,” “whose voice reflects . . . restraint,” and whose stature is of “mythic” proportions, ignores the vicious, coldblooded facts for which Williams was sentenced to death.

Although Williams states in the interview that he was surprised the way gangs have turned out and that he started the Crips to protect his loved ones, that unchallenged statement is at odds with the life of crime that Williams led. According to the state court records of Williams’ murder trial, not only did he coldbloodedly and needlessly kill four unarmed people in two separate robberies, he never showed any remorse for those murders. In fact, Williams bragged about the murders to his friends and even imitated the death sounds of the 7-Eleven teen-age store clerk he executed with two shots to the back of his head as he lay prone and unarmed, face down on the floor. After that recounting, Williams laughed for five minutes.

It is inconceivable to me that a cold-blooded murderer like Williams is looked to as a folk hero to solve our current gang problems. Certainly society can find someone better to reverse “the legacy . . . the Crips helped create.”

JOAN COMPARET

Deputy Attorney General

Los Angeles