Tookie: a priority for the NAACP
It is sad to see the NAACP, an organization with a noble history, reduced to pleading for the life of a brutal killer who has never admitted or apologized for his horrific crimes. The Los Angeles Times reports:
The new president of the nation's oldest and largest civil rights organization crisscrossed the state by jet Tuesday in a crusade to keep Stanley Tookie Williams, a co—founder of the vicious Crips gang, from execution next week.
The NAACP is hoping to call more attention to Williams' help in rehabilitating gang members — and, critics say, trying to rejuvenate an aging organization by linking it to a cause embraced by hip—hop stars.
In his first public appearance in California since taking charge of the National Assn. for the Advancement of Colored People in August, Bruce S. Gordon darted from Los Angeles to San Diego and from Sacramento to San Francisco to pressure Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to commute the death sentence of Williams — convicted of killing four people — to life in prison.
Other outlets have reported that Williams' childrens books have onlysold a few copies — well under a thousand in total. He looks to be a classic example of a jailhouse convert.
Absent a full confession, and a revealing of extensive information about the criminal organization he founded, Williams deserves no consideration at all.
Hat tip: Ed Lasky
Thomas Lifson 12 07 05