Stanley Tookie Williams – the co-founder of the Crips who became an anti-gang crusader while on death row died by lethal injection early Tuesday for the 1979 killings of four people in two Los Angles robberies. A spokeswoman for the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, said the unofficial time of death was 12:35 a.m. (3:35 a.m. ET). Williams, 51, while acknowledging he had a violent past, had maintained he was innocent in the slayings. It marked the second execution in California this year, and just the 12th since the death penalty was reinstated in the 1970s. Williams’ case set off intense debates over the death penalty and redemption, with celebrities, activists and anti-death penalty advocates saying his initiatives and anti-gang message from behind bars had proven his life was worth saving. He had even been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize and the Nobel Prize in Literature by an array of college professors, a Swiss lawmaker and others. R.I.P
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