Having cheated death once again (embolism), I lay in Santa Monica UCLA Hospital. Outside, several blocks away, a crowd had gathered to protest the impending doom of one Tookie Williams, co-founder of the notorious but oh so sexy killer Crips. It was on TV. Several rather old people, looking like long-time committed protesters, plus the usual earnest 20 and 30 somethings walking around with the usual signs: "Death penalty = barbarism" and the like. Fade out, and it's hours later, the last few minutes of Donny Deutsch. A pro-death penalty spokesman, dark-haired, too intense, and talking too fast for the cool blue has taken the bait and is making the point that clear-eyed, calm and obviously wise Mike Farrell, the anti-death penalty spokesperson and TV's beloved surgeon and veterinarian, would not execute even Pol Pot, Hitler, and/or Genghis Khan. Mike nods his beautiful hair and calmly says in mellow tones, "that's exactly right," timing the message to the second to close the segment. Perfect. That's a wrap, baby!
And there you have it: edgy, twitchy pro-death penalty fanatics are obsessed with killing, as clearly shown (it was on TV), while pro-life-without-parole people are gentle and kind, and really, hasn't there been enough killing already?
What you're missing is the third way.
About 14,000+ murders were racked up last year. We don't know for sure how many Tookie has ordered his Crips to commit over the years of his incarceration on Death Row. The mother of one of his victims, a soldier come home for some peace, is sure that the Crips still jump when Tookie snaps his fingers. I'll make a small confession here: I'm a homicide survivor. My brother has been a pile of ashes buried in the sandy soil of Holly Wood Cemetery in Orange City, FL, for over 10 years now. As I waited for the 10th year to pop, I expected something to happen. And of course nothing did. No message from beyond, no spectral figure, no word from God. Except the movie came forward again.
You don't know the movie. It's a video loop effect in your mind, a product of PTSD. When it first grabbed me, a few months after burying the last member of my immediate family and posing for pictures with his fellow drunks, it seemed to swell up like a wave. I had wondered what it must have been like, and my mind had put together a picture for me. It was pretty bad. I mean 100-200 stab wounds, chest, back, eyes, skull, pools of congealed blood in his eye sockets - pretty bad. So I had asked the DA to show me the photos, and he pulled out a packet from the local drug store. His office and all the others on the floor and virtually every inch of space on the floor itself are covered with case boxes. The pictures were obscene, far beyond what I had imagined, but I had to know. My shrink had cautioned me against it, but I wanted to have a certainty rather than fill in the blanks with imaginary tortures. I think I was right; it wasn't exactly calming, but it was certain: he died here, near the couch, naked and with two screwdrivers embedded in his neck.
The movie has never left me, and I know now it never will. Never; it's just a fact, like getting your arm blown off by an IED. It's a son of a bitch, but it's not undoable. Believe me, I've tried. Back then, the movie was in a kind of colorless state, not black and white, but not filled in somehow. I saw the furious stabbing (it takes a lot to penetrate a human with a dull Sears Philips-head) over and over - the loop. It was front and center, right in front of my third eye. Over the years, it has receded, but here's the thing: I can see, in great detail, other murders and what we call "combat deaths." I am there, unwillingly, and I can see the chunks taken out of the backs of Tookie's four (four known) victims, the nerves writhing, the raw meat, the blood, and their fall for the last time. It's not easy to watch the news and see the body count rise. Two thousand plus troops over 3+ years is a disgrace. They simply didn't have to die. But neither did the 49,000 civilians who died at the same time. That's right; we're talking Vietnam-era levels here, only internal. And so, I see it all. I know what's in the body bag. My brother's was white. It was on TV. And now, oddly, the movie has morphed. It has become full-color and gained sound, and the detail is sharp. In fact, it's almost like one of those 360-degree views of a hotel room or real estate on the Web. The splatter patterns are remarkable, even fractal-like.
Whatever. I just wanted you to have a brief taste of what's it's like to be a survivor. I'm linking to my story and giving you these details only to initiate you. This is not, I repeat not about me. It's about the tens of thousands of survivors generated every year. My story is the only one I've lived, and all I have to bring to the table here. We don't get the 2-3 million dollar settlements that the 9/11 survivors do. Sure it's unfair, but we weren't expecting anything. I didn't expect Jim to be murdered, either. We are pretty average people, except for the occasional celebrity murder. It's pretty close to 50/50 Black/White, low to high middle class. There's always Parents of Murdered Children, which has expanded its franchise to include sibling survivors now. I'm not very big on them; they are not therapeutic, and the people I've met there are stuck in Hell. But I don't know all that much about them outside of Michigan, and am certainly not qualified to pass professional judgment on them.
Ah, but Tookie - what a magnificent specimen he has turned out to be, like a fine buck stallion. [Goodness, have I heard about this one! I tried to explain that it was an expression of contempt I came across in an old grammar text. Actually, the phrase used in that 1948 text was "buck nigger," and I Bowdlerized it. We're not niggas or Black; I grew up in Florida and know exactly what the word means; I have told my son that the use of this word even with his best friend, who is Black, is not acceptable. If you are more exercised over this phrase than you are over homicide survivors, keep moving.] Look at that chest! It's the size that George Walker Bush is pretending to be when he thrusts his stiff little arms back and puffs his pigeon feathers. And Tookie has changed, in one of those miraculous jailhouse conversions, kind of like Chuck ("I'll bury you") Colson. I am 52. In my entire life, I have never heard of a conversion post-murder and pre-Death Row, much less before pulling the trigger or slashing the blade. Maybe they're just not good TV. And believe me, these guys would go on TV if they could. Hell, Aileen Warnous had two movies made of her by that Brit, Nick something who was in deep pain over the fact that someone who had obviously descended into madness would actually be made to forfeit her life. And the seven men she murdered? "Well, I wasn't exactly a professional," she says to Nick. "I mean, I was pretty messy." Indeed. Who were these seven men? Whom did Tookie kill? (I just know someone out there is screaming, "no one!") What's my brother's name?
Warnous must be spared because she is incompetent now. She wasn't incompetent when she began her spree, and blames the Florida troopers for not stopping her after the first murder, thereby making her a serial murderer. There is a certain Bush-like logic here: you didn't stop me from invading Iraq, therefore.... By the way, a lot of the footage in Nick's movie shows the facilities through which the murderer Corey Joe McCutcheon was shuttled. Him? My brother's killer. But Warnous is gone. Der Gropenater is said to be meeting with a Save Tookie delegation, probably including some of his Hollywood pals. They will go out to Arnold's custom-built smoking tent and smoke some Cubans. Tookie must be saved because he has written children's books cautioning against gang violence (no, I am not kidding), and because he has been very vocal in speaking out against violence, more so as his appeals ran out. What he actually communicates to the Crips today, we won't know. This lecturing would be similar to the head of the Cali or Medellin cartel doing TV spots like, "Kids! Don't do drugs!"
Do I think Tookie should die? Pick one: a) of course I do, or b) you bet your fuckin' ass. You probably don't. Whatever. The point is, the death penalty debate seesaws between two clichéd points, and guess which side the Dems will be on? The sissy side, as always. This is a Bad Idea. Phil (I'll shoot your ass, bitch!) Spector once said in response to the charge that rock lyrics c. 1962 were asinine, "what you're missing is the Beat." What you're missing is the Survivors. It's a hell of a market segment, over 50k growth in murders over 4 years. And when you factor in the 200, 100, or let's say 50 people personally affected by the ripping away of their father, mother, brother, etc., you've got a quarter mill.
So maybe [generic politician] might reply to the question, "Senator, how do you feel about the death penalty? Shouldn't we ban this barbaric anachronism now?" something like, "Wolf, I'd like to address that by emphasizing some people that have been entirely forgotten: the Survivors - people left behind after the murder. We will not solve the issue of whether or not it is justifiable to kill a killer. What we can do is to provide help and assistance in locating resources for survivors. The victim is gone; the killer probably doesn't care; but these people will carry an irreparable wound until the day they die. In some cases, people are literally ruined financially and emotionally, and in extreme cases, they even commit suicide. I say we expend some resources on the survivors of our 14,000 murders a year, and help who we can. They really need us."
So try to consider the advantages of this political statement here:
1. It sidesteps the trap of "you Libs wouldn't even execute the guy who raped and killed Kitty Dukakis!", which is untenable for most. Everyone has a limit.
2. It shows true compassion for the people who really, really need it.
3. It will surprise the shit out of most of the population, who never think about survivors. And why should they? It's not on TV.
Tookie's segment on my hospital TV showed him sliding his massive shoulders and chest through a doorway into the prison yard, him talking, his photograph, his anti-gang book cover, some heads talking, and 2.5 seconds of a photo showing a lump on the ground covered by a light raincoat. No name, no voiceover; you've all seen this shit before. Indeed. The other three? Well, they're pretty much all the same thing iconographically, if you dig, so why do it over? (Perhaps to show the truth?) It's really quite fascinating the way attention is drawn like magnetic iron particles to the murderer and away from the victim. The victim becomes a cipher, just another notch. And, face it, once you're dead, you're garbage. You start to rot immediately. And who wants to be reminded of that - especially since we'll all get there eventually? Garbage is to be put into a pile and disposed of. At about 6 grand a piece.
They say it takes about 12 years to finalize an execution sentence. In that time, 168,000 more people will have been murdered. About facts and figures: dig into the source. One source has been cited as an authority on falsely imprisoned and subsequently executed, er, victims of the justice system. It is actually a decidedly anti-death penalty organization. Arguments about this topic are still raging. In my brother's murder, there was a 6 billion in one chance that the blood soaking Corey's jeans was not Jim's, and a 100% chance that he would kill again. Where do I get off with this outrageous statement? The police record. Within 24 hours, he was ready for some drugs, a blow job, and a kill, but this one escaped. He is a serial killer who was caught early. I believe that Tookie is, too. When pondering how to commit this crime, he might have thought of wearing a ski mask or some such disfiguring device, but chose instead to simply pull the trigger, like blowing your nose into a Kleenex. This is an obscene act. Turning a human being into garbage is obscene, and there are no do-overs. Once would be bad enough, twice: Jesus!, but four times? I don't think Tookie considered terminating this modus operandus until he was caught.
So, I recommend surprising the competition and showing some true compassion. Believe me, your death-row killer doesn't need it. Do I? Yes, I think so. I don't like to admit that I'm not entirely self-sufficient, but I do have resources. Many, many other survivors have nothing and nowhere to turn. I care very little about your stance regarding the death penalty; you won't change my mind, and vice versa, so save the energy. I hope that you can start to think about the truly important "players" in these dramas. We are the club that no one wants to join.
Took Took Tookie Update semi-live from Sacramento
The talented (by Hollywood standards) but fascistic Gropenater mouths soundless words while the TV anchor overdubs the latest on Tookie. This will last 25 minutes, with updates and extended updates throughout the day, until Tookie is himself turned into garbage - or not.
Shots of gray-bearded, wizened Tookie today but curiously not of killer thug Tookie in the 70's, shot of 5 time proposed Nobel Peace Prize (it's almost as if he's actually won it, isn't it?) poster, shot of broad-chested Tookie the magnificent beast, bound by a fairly heavy chain across his chest (o Lord, undo these unjust bonds!) on a book cover (Life in Prison, check e-bay now!), and 4 seconds with the mother of one victim.
She has a disappointing hairdo, middle class fat, and an average vocabulary. Her son has no name, no sequence in the numerous killings logged and unlogged of Mr. Tookie, no explanation why (he was there and looked like he had a wallet, that's why) he was shot in the back to die a painful death. Her son is a cipher, just another detail to be swept aside because really, it just gets in the way of the story, which is all about Tookie.
No. It's about the victims and the people left behind. Fuck Tookie and all his kind. Give this woman back her son; take the weight of decades of grief off her. Make it unhappen, Tookie, and I'll love you long time in a personal way, you know what I'm sayin'? I'll fuckin' nominate you for a Nobel myself if you pull this one off.
John Lennon is still dead 25 years later. You were expecting him to arise out of Strawberry Fields in Central Park? [Update: And now Eugene McCarthy, who gets 1/10th the airplay of the also dead Richard Pryor.]
Dead is gone, man, hence the term "dead and gone." Tookie "has undergone a startling transformation on Death Row," says ABC in LA, right now. Tookie's victims, just like John Lennon, underwent startling transformations of their own, but quite unwillingly and indeed by surprise. But they're not martyrs or musical geniuses, just fathers or sons or both. We have an excess of middle class Whites, anyway.
And so it goes around and around. Oh yes, the NAACP has weighed in, unfair, Black man executed too often, as usual; other minor players like the Greens trying to get their banners in front of the cameras. I'm expecting Jesse ("what exactly do you do"?) Jackson to slide in any minute. Maybe Kucinich will issue a statement. He probably has.
Allow me to toss in an analogy here. I am very aware of the number of Black vs. White prisoners executed. If you look at the stats, you will see that Blacks are reported to commit murders at a rate definitely higher than Whites (for whatever reason; I'm not judging). Now, once upon a time, I was cruising at 80 mph when a pack of 6 cars passed me, doing about 100-110 in close formation - not a good idea. A state trooper took up the chase and, though he could have overtaken the lead car, nabbed the poor sucker in the caboose. Sheer chance, and the fact that the cop didn't want to try to pull over 6 speeders without backup. And so this one guy paid a heavy fine, and the rest escaped. But that doesn't make him less guilty or them more guilty. So, I would say, okay, the stats show that x race is convicted more often than z. Are they guilty?
Meanwhile, the unnamed mother of an unnamed victim mourns, somewhere in nowhereland off camera. You think it's easy to denounce the leader of one of the bloodiest killing agencies in LA in public when you're a 50+ white woman? This is the face of courage, not a scowling thug posing for prison pictures. ("Good, Tookie! Now show me the injustice, the outrage at being a Black man in a California prison! - work it hard!") It's not about Stanley. It's about her. You don't know just how hard it is for her to get through a day, much less speak out against people who will kill you quickly and without a care. The 12-steppers break it down to minute by minute or second by second: if I can just make it to the next second, etc. It can be that hard.
She would have had an easier time if her soldier son had been killed in combat, because it's explainable, there's a reason, maybe even a purpose, maybe he served a greater cause. Random murder ain't like that. There is no greater cause, nothing redeeming, and you are chained to this miserable scum for the rest of your life. My little boy has grown up chained to the murder of his uncle 5 days before his birthday party at the Giant Jungle Gym place. It can never be broken. Never. What did this 5-year old do to deserve this? What did unnamed victim number 3 or his mother do to deserve Tookie's brilliant solution to the post-robbery identification problem?
Tookiewatch Continues
So now the Crips and other of LA's more upstanding citizens are threatening widespread mayhem, including arson and murder, should Tookie slide comfortably off to his eternal rest. Certainly sounds like what a Nobel nominee would want, don't you think? Tookie, to my knowledge, has not begged for everyone to calm down and "just get along." To me, that speaks volumes, and I believe it's Tookie's own "nuclear option."
Listen. Stanley has had 26 years to appeal. Appellate courts are incredibly picky about evidence, argument, transcripts, and any other part of a trial. They can overturn a conviction with a snap of the fingers. Tookie's had a quarter of a century and produced nothing new with any of the tactics he's taken. It looks like the prosecutor got it right.
The myth is that there are far too many incompetent public defenders. The fact is, it can go either way. A sloppy or inexperienced ADA can set a killer lose to kill again. The myth is that the super-crafty, string-pulling ADA can pull tricks to get an innocent man, including you or me, convicted. I didn't see that. I saw a group of absolutely overwhelmed people doing their damnedest to make sure that every i was dotted and every t crossed, because somewhere down the line, an appellate judge might squint and say, "uh-uh. You left out the e in the defendant's name." Yes, that has actually happened.
A psychotherapist friend who has been treating drug-addicted gang members in Detroit for some years tells me she heard an NPR interview with Tookie today. Her assessment: "100% bullshit. No contrition, no humility, just pure manipulation. I've seen it a hundred times. You can always hear it in their voices." Of course, she cautions that you really need face-to-face dialogue for a real evaluation or "intake." And I'm sure someone could dig up a therapist who's totally enamored of Stanley. There are people, for example, who claim that OJ is innocent. No shit!
And now the apologists for Tookie are getting desperate. One says, "Tookie is absolutely innocent" of slaughtering a family of 3 in a motel room and one hapless soldier in a 7/11. Another says, "Tookie is the poster child for rehabilitation." First, I resent the use of the term "poster child" at all, since it began as a way to describe celebrity causes for eradicating disease. Get a semi-handsome but obviously crippled little boy on that poster and watch the change pile up in the plastic cannisters! Secondly, if you actually are innocent, well then, you don't really need rehabilitation, now do you? I believe this is called "throwing it up against the wall to see if anything sticks." So far, nada. Tuesday ought to be interesting.
Tick Tock
And so the Gropenater, in his wisdom, has sealed Tookie's passage to the Great Beyond, about 26 years after Tookie sealed the fate of 4 other human beings, including a family of 3 in a motel room. Certainly what every Nobel laureate would aspire to, I'm sure. Last-minute appeals to the Supreme Court and a dramatic San Quentin setting lend that much more excitement and sexiness to the life (N.B.: Tookie is alive. His victims are not.) of a cold-blooded killer. And what are the names of the people he killed? Why would Stanley or indeed anyone do this? How cold do you have to be to kill a child? The great MSM are silent on this, and not even a grainy 1979 photo is shown anymore. The survivors, as usual, are simply ciphers off stage. But Rita Cosby, Keith Olberman tells us, will be witnessing the execution, and Keith makes it sound as if she'll bring cameras into the room. I'm sure there's a market for it. And as predicted, Jesse Jackson has managed to grab some camera time once again. Expect a circus, including young people crying for Tookie, tonight. I'll take my stand with Mrs. Owens
Eternally Tookie
And so, Tookie departs in a flurry of action-packed million-dollar attorneys, Mike Farrell and God knows what other Liberal Hollywood types who support murderers; lights, cameras and not much action. God, I wish my brother could have gone out as peacefully as this murdering thug, but no, he was on the other end. I hear Deniro bought a lawyer for that Sopranos dude. Word from a legal secretary is that it was a robbery for drugs and he chose to shoot it out. Choices, people, choices. I have a sneaking suspicion that I will outlive my brother's killer - just a hunch - and when he's buried, I'll drink a keg and piss on his grave for hours. Not that I'm vengeful, you understand. But I've had a hard life, so I should be allowed a murder or two, at least. I know you'll never execute me.