Gangs Threaten Riots in Los Angeles: ‘Took Die, the City Fry’

UPDATE 2: Read our view of the racist blitherings left by numbskulls in the comments on this page HERE.

UPDATE: Apparently Gov. Schwarzenegger’s focus groups and polling indicated that he would derive the greatest political benefit from allowing the execution of Tookie Williams to proceed. Barring a last minute stay from the Supreme Court, Williams will receive the lethal injection tonight at 12:01 PM.

And that puts us on riot watch here in Los Angeles. Right now, I’m not feeling it. There hasn’t been a groundswell of protests, and no protests that I’m aware of that weren’t celebrity generated.

It seems very unlikely that the city is going to erupt like it did in 1992. And if it does, we have a better police force now so we can hope for the best.

From December 5, 2005:

Rage redux: The LA Weekly reports that the word is out in the “gang-osphere” that if Crips founder Tookie Williams is executed on Dec. 13, angry mobs are set to riot once again in Los Angeles:

“Took die, the city fry,” said Raymond “The Hatchet Man” Locket, a member of the West Side Harlem Crips, who says he knew Tookie back in the day. “That’s the word on the streets.”

Having lived through the riots in Los Angeles after the Rodney King verdict in 1992 and then the Northridge earthquake in 1994 (not to mention the Landers quakes and hundreds of fore- and after-shocks), I personally would take a 6.9 quake over citywide riot any day of the week.

The 1992 Riots

The ’92 riots showed how vulnerable cities are to an angry mob. Looking back, the weeklong state of emergency in Los Angeles 13 years ago also offered a preview of the Katrina disaster in New Orleans this year. There was official negligence: Police chief Darryl Gates was at a fundraiser the night the riots erupted, and purposefully stopped the LAPD from moving in to quell the violence at Florence and Normandy.

Ironically, Gates was raising money that night to fight efforts to reform his police department in the wake of the videotaped beating of Rodney King. It was the not-guilty verdict in the trial of the LAPD officers involved in the beating that sparked the riot April 29.

That night, millions of Angelenos watched local news overnight as the burning and looting escalated and spread across the city. The next morning, when Gates finally deployed the police, the LAPD was massively outnumbered by looters and malcontents. Our Thin Blue Line was a sad and pitiful joke. National coverage of the rioting apparently depicted it as being isolated to the ‘hood but in reality stores were looted Downtown, in Koreatown, Silver Lake, Hollywood, Beverly Hills and all over the city. Smoke and ashes from burning buildings blanketed the Basin and the hlls for days. Just about every Circuit City on the Westside was emptied. Molotov cocktails were tossed out of cars along Wilshire Blvd. in Beverly Hills at the Saks and Barney’s stores. Even the famous lingerie store Fredericks of Hollywood was trashed and picked clean.

Firefighters were hampered from saving lives and property by people firing weapons at them. Emergency medical services were overwhelmed. Citizens with health crises not related to the riots – heart attacks, broken legs, etc. – were out of luck for days. It took Gov. Wilson 72 hours to get the California National Guard onto the scene, and even then, the soldiers discovered they lacked ammunition for their weapons.

The point is, in Los Angeles, we take a threat of rioting seriously. And while it is hard to imagine that the city will once again erupt into violence if Williams is executed, in 1992, no one – including especially the mayor and chief of police – believed there would be riots after the King verdict.

I’m personally opposed to the death penalty (it doesn’t work as a deterrent, and I’m repulsed by the idea of society being in the business of exacting bloodthirsty revenge) but fear of rioting should not stop the execution of Tookie Williams – which is not to say that it shouldn’t be stopped. Williams has steadfastly denied his guilt. Moreover, he’s done his best to make the best out of his life in prison.

Clemency

Of course, Williams has one last chance, and that chance lies with the governor of California. Could there be a more bizarre scenario than having a lunkhead like Arnold Schwarzenegger in the position of deciding whether someone lives or dies? And yet he does. Williams will have a face to face hearing with the governor on Dec. 8. (The first such clemency hearing since 1992.)

Marc Cooper estimates the chances that Arnold will grant a stay of Williams’ execution to be about 40 percent – and he rightly points out that if Williams were facing Schwarzenegger’s Democratic predecessor, Gray Davis, the chance would have been well below zero. An ex-Marine, Davis was an extremist on law and order issues. In fact, in 286 cases in which a parole board had recommended release of prisoners, Davis turned down 100 percent.

Williams was a founder of the Westside Crips, and, as mentioned, he denies that he was involved in the cold-blooded murders of Albert Owens, during a robbery at a 7-Eleven store, and of motel owners Yen-I Yang and Tsai-Shai Chen Yang and their daughter Yu-Chin Yang Lin, at the Brookhaven Motel in South-Central Los Angeles, on February 27, 1979.

He has also spent his time in prison productively. He’s the author of several children’s books that encourage kids to avoid gang life and violence and has even been nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize.

Of course, Tookie Williams’ deeds and misdeeds will mean little this governor. He will make the decision based entirely on political considerations, a factor that may spare Tookie Williams’ life.

All Politics

At this point, Schwarzenegger is desperate to regain support among independents. To do this, he appears to be on a path of abandoning the few supporters he currently has, who are all on the extreme right.

Arnold (and his eternally misguided staff and advisers, including his Democratic wife) could well make the political calculation that sparing Tookie might please independents and liberals. If so, the governor will grant clemency to Williams in order to further his own political goals.

On the other hand, if Schwarzenegger denies clemency, we will see if the passions exist in the vast flatlands of South Los Angeles to bring turmoil down onto our heads once again – one week before Christmas.

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