Posted on 06/20/2006 6:23:11 PM PDT by Dubya
HUNTSVILLE — Proclaiming his innocence, an admitted drug dealer was executed Tuesday evening for a shooting spree that left three men dead and two others wounded outside a Fort Worth convenience store more than seven years ago.
Lamont Reese, 28, had to be carried into the death chamber.
"I want everyone to know I did not walk to this because this is straight-up murder," he said. "I am not going to play a part in my own murder. No one should have to do that."
He expressed love to his mother and to relatives of the murder victims as they watched from separate windows nearby.
"I do not know all of your names and I don't know how you feel about me," he said addressing the victims' relatives. "And whether you believe it or not, I did not kill them."
He said that he was at peace and he wanted them to be at peace.
"You have to move past it. It is time to move on," he said.
He said he was glad that the execution was occurring and that his time on death row was not "10 or 20 years."
As the drugs began taking effect, he said, "This is some nasty." Then he gasped.
At that moment, his mother, Brenda Reese, began pounding with her fists on the chamber window and began screaming repeatedly, "They killed my baby."
She kicked two holes in the death chamber wall and eventually was removed from the chamber. She sobbed loudly as she walked from the prison and nearly collapsed as she reached the prison administration building across the street.
Reese was pronounced dead at 6:27 p.m., eight minutes after the drugs began to flow.
He was the 12th inmate executed this year in the nation's busiest capital punishment state.
Reese, who described himself as "no angel" and acknowledged dealing crack cocaine for years, contended in an earlier interview he wasn't involved in the gunfire outside the convenience store the evening of March 1, 1999.
Anthony Roney, 26, Riki Jackson, 17, and Alonzo Stewart, 25, were killed. A 24-year-old man and 13-year-old boy were wounded.
"I was not at the crime," Reese insisted.
Reese's lawyers went to the federal courts to try to block the punishment, citing among their claims a U.S. Supreme Court ruling a week ago that condemned prisoners can file special appeals challenging the lethal injection method under a federal civil rights law after exhausting regular appeals. The high court, however, said inmates would not always be entitled to delays in their executions.
In Reese's case, the justices rejected his appeals about 20 minutes before he was scheduled to be taken to the death chamber.
Evidence at Reese's trial showed his 18-year-old girlfriend, Kareema Kimbrough, walked out of the convenience store about four miles southeast of downtown Fort Worth and drew the attention of several men who were drinking and playing dice outside the place. Reese became angry with the men flirting with Kimbrough.
The couple left, met up with three others, including a pair of juveniles, and armed themselves with handguns and assault rifles. With Kimbrough driving and accompanied also by her 2-year-old son, she dropped off the four near the store.
The gunmen then sprayed the scene with bullets. Kimbrough drove back around, retrieved her friends and they all sped off.
Police were told by the victim of another shooting of people bragging about the convenience store gunfire. That led to the arrests of Reese, Kimbrough and their companions. Detectives found ammunition in Reese's car that matched bullets found at the shooting scene.
Sean Colston, one of the Tarrant County district attorneys who prosecuted Reese, said evidence was clear that Reese was responsible for the slayings.
"When you're dealing with capital punishment, it's not that you get a sense of satisfaction," he said. "I feel it's a just punishment."
Reese grew up in Louisiana where he said he spent much of his childhood in state custody after his mother was sent to prison,
Kimbrough, now 26, is serving a life prison term on a capital murder conviction. The three others, including the two juveniles who were charged as adults, agreed to plea bargains and are serving sentences ranging from 35 to 50 years.
Scheduled to die next in Texas is serial killer Angel Maturino Resendiz, a former FBI Ten Most Wanted fugitive, set for lethal injection June 27 for the fatal stabbing of Houston-area physician Claudia Benton in December 1998.
Benton is among at least 15 victims police in Texas, California, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky and Illinois have linked to Resendiz, who became known as the "Railroad Killer" because many of the attacks were near railroad tracks and because he was known to hop on freight trains to travel around the United States.
HoustonChronicle.com -- http://www.HoustonChronicle.com | Section: Houston & Texas This article is: http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metropolitan/3987757.html
Another takes the long dirt nap.
http://www.oag.state.tx.us/oagnews/release.php?id=1604
AUSTIN – Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott offers the following information about Lamont Reese, who is scheduled to be executed after 6 p.m Tuesday, June 20, 2004.
On March 1, 1999, Reese participated in a gang-related shooting that resulted in the deaths of three men.
After members of a gang made fun of his girlfriend outside a Fort Worth convenience store on March 1, 1999, Lamont Reese and three of his friends returned to the store to shoot the gang members. At the store, Reese shot and fatally wounded 17-year-old Riki Jackson, 25-year-old Alonzo Stewart and 26-year-old Anthony Roney.
Following the shooting, Reese and his friends returned to his girlfriend’s home, where they bragged about their crime. One of the men told another man who had not participated in the shooting that Reese had shot three people with an assault rifle. Reese did not dispute this statement. Reese boasted that he got the men who were at the pay phone at the store.
On the heels of his arrest, police impounded Reese's vehicle and found five live cartridges in the glove compartment. The cartridges were identical to several live rounds of ammunition discovered at the crime scene.
While in jail after his arrest, Reese approached the jailer and asked if he was classified as a “celebrity inmate.” The jailer responded that Tarrant County had no such classification, but instead classified appropriate inmates as “high profile.” When he assured Reese that he would check on his classification, Reese announced, “Hell, I killed three people.”
Nice find. The fool must have thought he was in my state.
I'm in Florida and I advocate trial and execution for people who kill five children. Andrea Yates being one of them
A lot of people feel that way. I'm glad I wasn't on the jury.
"Those who are kind to the cruel will be cruel to the kind"
Did his victims have a choice about their "straight-up" murder?
Hail to Texas !!!
It's not kindness.
http://www.santegidio.org/en/pdm/news/ap_resendiz.htm
Because she really was nuts. The insanity plea was truly and genuinely meant for people like her.
Reese's innocence claim was not based on the fact that one of the other passengers actually shot the men to death. Reese claimed that he was elsewhere at the time of the shooting -- a claim which the jury rejected.
And Resendiz, the Railroad Killer from Mexico, had a voter registration card in his wallet when they arrested him. Yep, he was a registered Democrat in St. Louis.
So if you are a certified crazy (Andrea Yates) you get a form a affirmative action where you don't get tried and executed when you kill five children. But if Mr. X shoots and kills five children in a playground he will end up being executed
In a word, yes.
That's what ya get for being a braggart. LOL
And you know this is not justice, especially not justice for the 5 children killed by Andrea Yates
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