I wrote a very long message in a forum--only to find out that the topic had been closed.

The subject of the topic was what people thought about Stanley Tookie Williams.

Someone asked if Tookie were about to have his own talk-show or something.

The next person said that Tookie was due to be executed, if the governor didn't stop it from happening.

The next person said that the reason the question before the last question had been asked was to hint that this was off-topic.

As I said, I wrote a long response, but found out that the topic had been closed.

No use letting a long response go to waste, so I'm pasting it in this post...

I couldn't tell you this for sure, as I've been online more than I've been watching TV, but I would imagine that Tookie and his supporters/detractors/etc. have been on TV plenty.

Having said this, let me go on to say that I'm opposed to the death penalty (and, yes, I've had a loved one murdered, but that still doesn't change my position).

Even if I weren't opposed to the death penalty, there would be red flags going up in the case of Tookie.

Evidence has come out that there was nothing to link him to the crime--except for the gun that was used being in his name. But it was a gun he'd bought for someone else a long time before the murders took place. It's commonplace for gang members to have weapons. For whatever reason, it was easier for him to buy the gun than for whomever it was he'd bought it. Might not have even been the same person who had the gun last.

I'd heard that it was actually the person who'd had the gun last who'd turned Tookie in--either turned him in or else copped a plea for himself by giving "evidence."

One of the two founders of the Crips had been killed out on the street. It would be a feather in the cap of local law-enforcement to take out the other founder, so this would be a great reason to try to frame him.

The Crips had actually started out (original reason for Tookie and his buddy founding them) as a group to try to protect people of all ages from some smaller and more violent gangs that were taking things from even women and children.

Somehow, it got corrupted--after which, with bad reputation intact, it spread nationally and even internationally.

Unless I was just so much for the death penalty that I couldn't see straight (which seems to be the case with too many of the powers-that-be), I would also see that Tookie had grown up and was being effective at preventing countless of children from joining gangs plus even getting those (even older youth) who were part of gangs to get out.

IMO, the governor made a big mistake in not commuting Tookie's sentence to life-without-parole--or (if that somehow didn't seem "fair" to him to do that) simply put a morritorium on the death penalty for the state of California.

This is why Charlie Manson and Sirhan Sirhan are alive today--and, in the case of the first, he's much more unrepentant than Tookie. Why should Tookie repent of something he didn't do? Charlie Manson, on the other hand, might not have been there to do the actual murders, but he was the ringleader who governed things like an Antichrist, and his family simply followed orders (like mind-control).

Those who legally-murdered Tookie are just as bad as the gang-members who too often use uncivilized methods to "even the score."