In South L.A., a Clash Over Nobel Nominee

Nominations for the Nobel Peace Prize rarely get much attention on the hard-bitten streets of Watts and South-Central Los Angeles.

But the recent nomination of death row inmate Stanley “Tookie” Williams is spurring debate over the value of a righteous lesson from a condemned messenger.

The co-founder of the notorious Crips gang in Los Angeles and the convicted murderer of four people, Williams’ name has been submitted to join those of Nobel laureates Desmond Tutu, the Dalai Lama, Nelson Mandela and Mother Teresa.

A member of the Swiss parliament recently proposed Williams for the peace award on the basis of a series of children’s books that the inmate wrote from his tiny San Quentin prison cell. The books, written in the first person, recount Williams’ earlier life of crime and urge youths to stay clear of gangs.

On South Los Angeles streets, in churches and government offices, reaction to the nomination has been strongly split. Former gang members who see Williams as a role model for rehabilitation are gleeful. But shocked law enforcement officers say a convicted murderer doesn’t deserve such a distinction.

Swiss Parliament member Mario Fehr, who nominated Williams, said he expected some controversy but thought his choice would focus new attention on the issues of gang violence and the death penalty.

“I was sure to receive some criticism,” he said from Zurich. “I mean, it’s not a usual nomination.”

In a telephone interview Wednesday from San Quentin, Williams said he was “caught off guard” by the nomination because he doesn’t consider himself a role model.

However, he said it helps to legitimize all his efforts to denounce gang violence. “It shows that a person in the abyss of a wretched prison cell can be responsible,” Williams said.

“I know that what I’m doing is right and that I should have done it long ago.”

Former gang members and activists who are trying to keep the peace between gangs were buoyed by the nomination.

“I was elated, man,” said Malik Spellman, a community activist who helped broker the 1992 Watts gang peace treaty. “I was so honored because people who are peacemakers in the streets should be nominated.”

But probation officers and law enforcement officials said Williams’ recent contributions do not outweigh his past sins.

“The man murdered four people and is responsible for helping form the Crips,” said Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Sgt. Wes McBride, president of the California Assn. of Gang Investigators. “His creation has spread across the country and internationally.”

McBride, who wrote to the Nobel committee to oppose Williams’ nomination, said he supports the peace efforts of other former gang members. But he added: “We should never elevate gang members to statesmen.”

Williams was sentenced to death in 1981 for fatally shooting Alvin Owens, a convenience store worker, in Whittier during a 1979 robbery. Witnesses say Williams joked about the sound Owens made as he lay dying.

Williams was also convicted of using a shotgun a few days later to kill Los Angeles motel proprietors Thsai-Shai Yang, Yen-I Yang and their daughter, Yee Chen Lin, during another robbery.

Williams insists that he is not guilty and is appealing his convictions.

Perhaps his most infamous legacy will be the Crips gang, which authorities say he co-founded in 1971 with his friend Raymond Washington to protect his neighborhood against attacks from rival gangs. Washington was killed by a rival in 1979.

There are now hundreds of Crips spinoffs and copycat gangs in Los Angeles County and throughout the world. Law enforcement officials say Crips gang members are responsible for thousands of deaths and shootings.

When he walked the streets of South Los Angeles, Williams was called “Big Took” because weightlifting had given him a hulk-like body. In books and interviews, Williams admits that the gang life made him a monster and a megalomaniac.

Renounced Gang Life

Since his imprisonment, Williams has renounced the gang life and apologized for the misery caused by the Crips. With the help of journalist Barbara Becnel, Williams has written eight books in a series called “Tookie Speaks Out Against Gang Violence.” Becnel described the books as “morality tales from the ‘hood” and said they are used in schools and juvenile correction facilities throughout the United States, Switzerland and South Africa.

Williams is also the brainchild for the Internet Project for Street Peace, which allows American children to communicate with Somali immigrant children in Switzerland and youngsters in South Africa.

Swiss Parliament member Fehr concedes that Williams, who joins a record 150 nominees for the 2001 peace prize, has a slim chance of winning.

The Norwegian prize jury accepts nominations only from past Nobel committee members, members of national assemblies and governments, university professors, past winners and members of several international peace advocacy groups.

The controversy surrounding Williams’ nomination is not the first for the Nobel Peace Prize, which was inaugurated in 1901 in memory of Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite.

Triggering some anger, the 1974 award was won by Sean MacBride, a former Irish Republican Army member who later became president of the International Peace Bureau and a United Nations Commissioner. The 1994 award was given jointly to Israel Foreign Minister Shimon Peres, Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat, prompting one member of the Nobel committee to resign, calling Arafat a terrorist.

Some law enforcement officials are using equally strong terms to denounce Williams.

“Good God,” said Richard MacMahon, director of the gang unit for the Los Angeles County Probation Department. “I do not see [Williams’] contributions as being comparable to those of Desmond Tutu and Mother Teresa.”

In response, Williams said he did not ask for the nomination and is simply trying to keep youngsters from making the same mistakes he made.

“I was always against any types of awards and stuff,” he said. “Everything that I’ve done and continue to do is from the heart.”

But San Quentin Prison spokesman Vernell Crittendon said prison officials believe Williams is still actively involved with a Crips gang--a charge that Williams vehemently denies.

He added that Williams, who entered the prison more than 19 years ago, has spent 92 months in isolated custody--known to prisoners as “the hole”--for “serious rule violations, including battery on inmates and threatening staff.” Williams’ supporter stress that he has not been disciplined since 1993.

Fehr, a death penalty opponent, said he doubts Williams is guilty of the four murders. But even if he is guilty, Fehr said, Williams “can give an example to young kids that no matter what mistake you have done, you can still change your life for the better.”

Melvin Farmer, a former Eight-Tray Crips gang member and prison rights activist who grew up with Williams in South Los Angeles, agreed.

“When do you pay your debt--when you are dead?” he said.

The Rev. Cecil Murray, the pastor at First African Methodist Episcopal Church in Los Angeles, who is working to reach a truce between gang leaders, said Williams’ message would not resonate with gang members had he not lived the gang life himself.

“Repentance is always a light in the darkness,” he said.