Lost Core Values 01/06 Letter to the editor By: Jane LeMond-Alvarez On 12/01/05, I wrote a letter to the Ventura County Star titled, “Justice Served” for 4 innocent people who were gunned down by a callous murderer. I wrote that Tookie Williams had 25 years to beg for his life - his victim’s has seconds to beg for theirs. Now this murderer is back in the limelight. I’ve compared the death of Tookie Williams with my father’s death. In 1996, my mother, 4 siblings & myself stood next to my father’s bedside in the hospital listening to the doctor who diagnosed my father with Pancreatic Cancer & said that my father has less than 8 weeks to live. My father looked the doctor right in the eye & said, “Thank you Doctor for all you’ve done.” With that, the doctor walked away leaving the 7 of us in shock and disbelief. Dad came home from the hospital & from day one, he had a mission - to take care of his family. That mission was to take care of funeral arrangements. Dad was insistent that everything be taken care of so that the rest of the family had no worries. He went with Mom to sign the final papers for the will, cremation, funeral & any other arrangements that needed to be done to make sure that Mom & my twin, who was mentally retarded, were taken care of. Then he made sure any repairs to the house and car were taken care of. For 8 agonizing weeks, my family bonded together every minute we could. My father never once complained about his life being cut short. Tension began to grow in the family…not because we were fighting, but because we were about to lose the most important man in our lives - a man of principles & integrity. My father had never broken a law in his life and he loved his family with a vengeance Tookie’s execution was painful for me because it was unfair that a criminal who spent most of his life victimizing and murdering people would have twenty-five years to “fight” for his life - millions of dollars spent for appeals and all paid for by citizen’s & my father only had eight weeks to “fight” for his life and forced to use his hard earned money to pay for his death expenses. There was no front page news about my father’s death either. It didn’t matter that Tookie brutally killed four human beings. He bragged about the four people he killed & used racial slurs to laugh about their final moments of life. I haven’t verified it yet, but I do not think the Reverend Jackson was there protesting his racial slurs to the victims? The truth is that Tookie didn’t care about the lives he cut short. Nor do the many celebrities & citizens who came out in groves to protest his execution. Did they protest the victim’s untimely deaths? Our society has lost it’s core value. We are honoring those who do not deserve it. We are even making those criminals out to be heroes. Tookie has been honored in the same category as Rosa Parks. Shameful! For eight short weeks my father only cared about what was going to happen to his family. My father died a painful death but he died with dignity. Tookie was given a painless shot. Tookie died a dishonored & shameful death - now they are honoring his death with a play.

Jane LeMOND Alvarez