Warning shots not required, 2011

Patrick Martinez: When you are in front of this painting, you feel like you’re immersed in it.

Narrator: Artist Patrick Martinez. 

Patrick Martinez: The image in the middle of the painting is Stanley Tookie Williams. He's one of the founders of the Crips here in Los Angeles. 

Narrator: Williams was eventually convicted of murder, but became a leader in anti-gang education while on death row in San Quentin State Prison. 

Patrick Martinez: Why paint Tookie Williams in the middle? Because there was complexities to that man. They wanted to protect their communities, their people from racism and violence from almost like white gangs, right? 

They obviously evolved into something that aligned themselves more with organized crime, drugs, street violence, you know just domination culture in L.A.. 

So having that complex kind of history, putting a figure like that in one of your paintings creates some of that, it's very complex. 

Narrator: We might see a contrast between this human complexity and the blanket violence of a sign that reads “No Warning Shots Required.” The inhumanity and injustice of mass incarceration loom in the background of many of Taylor’s paintings. Here, these themes are front and center.