The execution of Stanley Tookie Williams

Outside San Quentin prison Monday night, under the floodlights, death penalty opponents prayed, sang hymns and cursed the Terminator.

By Adam Shemper and Jonathan Stein

Dec 13, 2005 | Stanley Tookie Williams was executed by lethal injection at California's San Quentin prison early Tuesday morning. He was 51 years old.

Williams walked into the execution chamber, a semioctagonal room with a padded green gurney and flooded with pale white light. He lay down. Guards strapped him in. A guard kept a hand on Williams' shoulder. A nurse had difficulty finding a vein in his left arm. She accidentally drew blood. It took 12 minutes to prepare the IVs. Williams held his head up. He looked at the press -- 17 journalists in all. He looked at his loved ones -- five of them present -- and mouthed words that journalists couldn't hear or understand.

At 12:21 a.m., the first drug, five grams of sodium pentothal to make Williams unconscious, was pumped into his arm. That was soon followed by injections of 50 cc's of pancuronium bromide to stop his breathing and 50 cc's of potassium chloride to stop his heart. After a few minutes, Williams' stomach begin to spasm and contract. Soon he was not moving. The roomful of witnesses sat in silence looking at Williams' unmoving body.

A circular flap in a heavy metal door near Williams' body was opened by someone unseen. A piece of paper was slipped through and was unrolled by a female guard who made the final announcement. Stanley Tookie Williams was dead at 12:35 a.m. Three of his passionate supporters, including Barbara Becnel, a former Los Angeles Times reporter, cried out, "The state of California just killed an innocent man."

Inside San Quentin's media center, journalists finally sprung into action. Most had been here over four hours. The décor was like that of an old library, with drab purple carpeting and bright halogen lighting. A trophy case stood next to instructional videos on what to do if taken hostage. A stage with a folding table and the American flag was at the front of the room. "It looks like they do plays here," one journalist had said earlier. "They could put on 'Annie.'"

For most of the night, there had been apprehension and boredom. One guy sketched in a notebook. "Monday Night Football" played on a small TV. Others flipped through the press package prepared by the San Quentin press office. It opened with three pages of pictures of a young Albert Owens, followed by pictures of his dead body, lying in a pool of blood next to empty Pepsi bottles. On another page that addressed Williams' Nobel Prize nomination, the booklet explained that over 140 nominations are submitted each year and that former nominees have included Hitler, Stalin and Mussolini.

But now journalists clutched their BlackBerrys, hoping to get the first e-mail from their colleague who witnessed the execution. They began tapping the heels of their polished shoes. A photographer took a picture of their faces lit up by their hand-held devices' blue glow. A TV cameraman walked up and started filming.

When word broke out of the official time of death, a journalist got on his cell, "Hey, Joe, it's me. It's 12:35!" People ran to their camera stations.

People standing outside said prayers. They sang "We Shall Overcome," although a girl sitting on top of a trailer said, "I don't believe that. I'm not singin'." A Richmond, Calif., reverend began shouting through a megaphone: "I'm tired of singin'! I'm tired of talkin'! Do somethin'! Let's do somethin'!" He marched out to a chorus of amens, hollering and people following him. It was as if everyone decided to leave and follow the one person who was angry and ready for action.

A Native American man on the other side of the street held a large upside-down American flag with a white swastika painted in the blue field of stars. He was shouting at the "white maggots" who had defiled his land, who had oppressed and enslaved his people. He yelled at the blond news anchors below him, "You're all immigrants. This is my land you've been poisoning for the last 500 years." He lighted the flag on fire as a black woman told him he shouldn't do that, that he should have more pride in this nation. He responded that it was time for a "true indigenous people's revolution." Then the white picket fence he was holding onto broke and he fell down the small embankment. Then the people he'd been arguing with lifted him up and asked him if he was OK. "Yeah," he said. "I'm OK."

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