San Quentin

November 19, the day of a rally outside the gates of San Quentin Prison to support the Death Row Prisoner Stan "Tookie" Williams, scheduled to be rubbed out on the 13th of next month.
This picture is the road in front of my house. The prison is about maybe 1/8 of a mile down the road here, clearly visible from my front porch (where I was standing when this picture was taken).
I wanted to attend the rally but had worked 16 hours straight the night before and needed to sleep.
Through my haze in bed I could hear people walking in front of the house on the way to the rally, outside the gates. The county and state make it as difficult as possible for people to come to these rallies by blocking off the street to cars. Not just here but all streets anywhere near here. You'd have to park way down by Home Depot and walk a good mile to get to the prison, but about a thousand people did yesterday to support the guy who founded the Crips gang in LA, now a writer of children's books and a Nobel Prize nominee for peace. He's done alot of anti gang work while in prison . Seems the guy is more use to society alive than dead whatever it was he did.
There's a question of his true guilt and the issue of a fair trial looms large (www.savetookie.org).
I decided that even if I was too disabled by sleep deprivation I still had to show support for the guy if not opposition to the Death Penalty (why is the state in the business of killing people?) so I took out a large piece of butcher block paper and wrote "Save Tookie" with a sharpie and hung it from my porch.
I hear a knock on my door that faces the street, the one to my bedroom. I come to my door looking probably like the corpse bride and there's a phalanx of what appears to be the Fruit of Islam with ear buds and shades. One guy with freckles and a nice smile and demeanor ask me if Snoop Dog's van and entourage within it can park in my space since they saw it was empty, my car having been taken to work by Peter.
I say I would be honored to allow Snoop Dog's van to park in my spot, forgetting for a moment that this was not KPFA radio or Death Penalty Focus people asking for the space, like it was last execution, that of a guy named Beardsley last year. Those people did indeed honor me by parking in my space, I realize later that all I was really doing by allowing Snoop Dog et al to park there was make it easier for him and his entourage to get to the rally a few feet away, lessening the exposure to the public by this celebrity.
Whatever.
Snoop Dog. Never cared for him much, don't like most rap music and least of all his. I think he's a bit of a scuzzball actually but if he can call attention to this pending execution and help raise the issue of it's wrongness to the public, so be it.
I have to go down the street and tell the cops that indeed they have my permission to park there and give my address. I put some slippers on and go.
Whenever there is an execution or a rally outside, the state goes into full security mode. Local cops, Sheriff's Office, CHP and State cops all buzz around, with one department telling local residents they can't park in their own driveways, another telling us "They don't make the rules here; we do". If you're parked at the usual slight odd angle, someone will inevtably tell you to move your car; no matter it's in your own driveway. The next one will tell you not to move it.
I go back to the house and the van pulls into my driveway with my neighbors Jon and Heather getting excited about all the commotion and celebrity.
I like this young couple but don't know where they stand on the Death Penalty. They take pics as Snoop sits in the van with eyes down, fingering a cell phone or some electronic device in his hand. No eye contact with anyone. I think what an asshole; the least he can do is thank me for giving up my parking space for his comfort. I guess that the job of his "fruit", and they do and do it profusely.
He comes out of the van with his posse, them helping him out likes he's an invalid, taking his arms and escorting him down the street. His back is to me and I watch as he goes down the street safely surrounded by his security guys.
This rally is different from the one outside the gates when the execution of Beardsley took place last year. It's not as somber, it has more of a party atmosphere. No execution is going to take place today or tonight.
At that time, the mood in the neighborhood was uptight and tense, as if there's an unspoken collective guilt that weighs on the people who frequent the neighborhood by going to work at the prison or use the Post Office outside the gates. Tension that day was palpable and for the first time I realized what it meant to live outside a state penitentiary with the only Death Rown in the state. Six hundred some men sit awaiting their deaths inside the walls of the prison here; every once in awhile one is snuffed out. Makes me feel a little nauseous.
The night of Beardsley's execution I arranged in advance for KPFA to use my parking space and house for the bathroom, phone or hot tea in the cold night air and I'm happy to be able to do this. There's a public restroom for visitors outside the gates, open to the public but it is blocked off for these events. Death Penalty Focus people were also invited by me to use the facilities in my home. I served hot tea and coffee since it was so cold out with a fierce wind coming off the Bay.
I didn't realize at that time what I was in for and was pleasantly suprised when people came into the kitchen in clusters, warming their hands on their cups.
The whole scene is macabre; it's dark and foggy out and I still can't shake the fatigue from working long hours. All these people, in and out of what is normally a quiet idyllic beach town, makes it all surreal to me. I've only lived here a year.
Mike Farrell, formerly of M*A*S*H TV fame, came into my kitchen for the warmth. He's an ardent Death Penalty opponent and comes to rallies outside the gates every time there is an execution and denounces this state sponsored murder, lending his celebrity to the movement.
When he walked in last October, I was determined not to add any celebrity worship not already present outside and I basically ignored him. In fact I was so determined I didn't even give him a spoon for his cup of tea! What an idiot. He used my bathroom and while zipping down his pants I burst in, afraid that my son who was in his bedroom beyond would not know someone was in there and come out while Mike is taking a whizz.
Peter's bedroom is past the bathroom in a linear set up in my apartment. One must go through the bathroom to get to his room and he must go through it to get out into the rest of the apartment. Weird setup but the door can be locked. This locks anyone in the bedroom in while someone is using the facilities.
Sally Leiberman, Assemblywoman from Sacramento also comes to the house, and seems to assume I know who she is. I embarrassed to admit to her I don't.
We talk about the Death Penalty and the support that remains for it in the general public (alot).
After the inmate is "gone" the warden came out and described the man's last moments. I don't go to the prison gates for this; I don't want to hear it. I stay in the house and keep the tea fires burning.

At the rally yesterday I go down to the gates having been caught up in the momentum of the crowd.
I see an elderly woman in a wheelchair and ask her if she wants to use a REAL bathroom as there's no way a wheelchair is going to fit in the port-a-potty. She says yes and her companion and I wheel her to the house. She can climb a few stairs and we get her into my bathroom. I don't know who this woman is.
I'm more solicitous of old people in wheelchairs now; probably because I feel guilt at not having helped my mother more when she was in one. She died last February.
Turns out the whisp of a woman using my loo is Yuri Kochiyama( http://rwor.org/a/v20/980-89/986/yuri.htm).
She is Japanese American and a veteran not only of the Civil Rights Movement but of American concentration camps where Japanese were interred during WWII.
Now THERE is someone I feel honored to have in my house using my loo. Snoop Dog can use the port- a- pottys!
If I could spread rose petals at this tiny woman's feet I would.
She had to have been wheeled almost a mile to get here since no one can park anywhere near here and I again am impressed with the dedication of people who come here to show their opposition to this ghastly policy, the USA being the only industrialized nation left to impose it.
There's alot of kids at the rally, I invite their parents to use the facilities too.
Several kids come in to use the bathroom, looking scared to death. Probably not invited into white folks houses very often, especially ones they don't know. I offer the kids sodas and fruit. I make them tell me their names before handing them the sodas and their adult escort (don't know what relation he is to them) declines any refreshment.
We talk about school and homework, what a drag all that is but necessary.
You meet the most interesting people live down the street from the Death House. Too bad it's under such heinous circumstances.

California Death Row Statistics Source: California Department of Corrections
California Death Row Population (As of June 7, 2005)
Men630
Women15 Total645
Ethnicity (As of June 7, 2005):
White256 (39.69%)
Black229 (35.50%)
Hispanic121 (18.76%)
Other39 (6.05%)
California Executions: 1977-2005 (As of August 4, 2005)Men11 Women0Total11