Hundreds pay respects to 'Tookie' Williams

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- Hundreds of people converged Monday on the South Los Angeles neighborhood where Stanley "Tookie" Williams co-founded the Crips, to say goodbye to a "homeboy" executed last week over the objections of supporters who said he had turned his life around.
Williams, clad in a gray suit, lay in an open coffin at the House of Winston Mortuary as people quietly filed by with their heads bowed.
"Mostly everyone is out here because of his reputation," said Robert Collins, 27, who said he was a former Crips gang member. "Everyone knew Tookie was no angel. Everyone's just paying their respects to him."
A line of 200 stretched out the door shortly after the six-hour viewing began in mid-afternoon. More than an hour later, the line had dissipated but people were still streaming through.
Williams, whose execution was carried out over the protests of supporters who included celebrities and civil rights activists, spent his last years on California's Death Row renouncing gang violence and writing several children's books warning of the dangers of gangs.
Williams, 51, was executed Dec. 13 for the murders of four people during a pair of 1979 robberies.
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