Free Republic

Mourners overflowed a church Tuesday for the funeral of executed murderer and Crips gang co-founder Stanley Tookie Williams, listening to eulogies by hip-hop star Snoop Dogg and Rev. Jesse Jackson and a recording of Williams urging peace. As police watched, mourners including gang members flashing hand signs gathered at the 1,500-seat Bethel AME Church in South Los Angeles and in a parking lot where a TV showed the funeral for Williams, who was executed Dec. 13 despite a celebrity-studded campaign for clemency. Snoop Dogg recited a poem, "Until We Meet Again," in which he referred to the execution. "It's nine-fifteen...

About 2,000 people turn out to view the body of the killer and writer executed last week despite a high-profile campaign to save his life. For many of the mourners filing past the casket Monday, the gray-bearded gentleman in the tailored gray suit and silk tie bore little resemblance to the man they remembered as the muscle-bound, fearsome Crips co-founder, Stanley Tookie Williams. "When I was a kid, Tookie was the most dangerous man in South-Central Los Angeles," recalled Najee Ali, 42, director of Project Islamic Hope, a Los Angeles-based civil rights group. "Looking at him today, I'm reminded that...