Schwarzenegger Terminates Gang Member!

Gang leader Stan "Tookie" Williams has been executed — after California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger rejected his pleas for mercy.

The 51-year-old killer was given a lethal injection at 8.35am, UK time.

Schwarzenegger was not swayed by appeals for clemency from stars including Oscar-winner JAMIE FOXX, who portrayed Williams in a 2004 movie, and rapper SNOOP DOGG.

Williams founded Los Angeles' notorious Crips street gang and murdered four people in 1979.

Hollywood stars and capital punishment foes argued that Williams' sentence should be commuted to life in prison because he had made amends by writing children's books about the dangers of gangs and violence.

The case became the state's highest-profile execution in decades.

Schwarzenegger, who deliberated for three days, could have commuted the death sentence to life in prison without parole.

But he said last night: "I could find no justification for granting clemency."

Williams was condemned in 1981 for gunning down convenience store clerk Albert Owens, 26, at a 7-Eleven in Whittier and killing Yen-I Yang, 76, Tsai-Shai Chen Yang, 63, and the couple's daughter Yu-Chin Yang Lin, 43, at the Los Angeles motel they owned.

He denies the murders but has apologised for founding the gang blamed for thousands of killings.

Witnesses at the trial said Williams boasted about the killings, stating "You should have heard the way he sounded when I shot him."

Williams then made a growling noise and laughed for five to six minutes, according to the transcript that the governor referenced in his denial of clemency.


Fifty witnesses attended the execution at San Quentin State Prison — against Williams' wishes.

About 1,000 death penalty supporters and opponents gathered outside the prison awaiting the execution.

Williams was the 12th person executed in California since lawmakers reinstated the death penalty in 1977.

Global Arnold Staff

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