An event kicking off the Alabama census got somewhat heated Thursday when the state's governor was confronted by the family of a man executed last week under her charge. The Washington Post reports that Gov. Kay Ivey was taking questions from reporters in Montgomery, and she was answering one on how the new coronavirus would affect the census process when suddenly a woman nearby interrupted her midsentence. "[Gov.] Ivey, I'm the sister of Nathaniel Woods," Pamela Woods said in the clip shown on WVTM as she stood inches from the governor, and as an Ivey handler tried to steer her away. "You killed my brother. Gov. Ivey, you killed my brother, he's an innocent man." Ivey's handler then stepped in, told the reporters they could email her with more questions, and led Ivey away through a nearby doorway, with Woods trying to follow them.
Nathaniel Woods was put to death by lethal injection last week for his role in the 2004 shooting deaths of three cops. He wasn't the one who pulled the trigger, and his case was a controversial one, with his co-defendant saying Woods had nothing to do with the shootings, and activists such as Martin Luther King III and Kim Kardashian standing up for him. Pamela Woods spoke with reporters after her face-off with Ivey, saying that her brother had shoddy legal representation and that the FBI should step in to investigate cases involving police officers. "These were dirty cops ... everyone knows this," she said, per WSFA. "So why? Why execute an innocent man?" She also said Ivey should get rid of the death penalty, while noting that Ivey herself, as well as Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall, are murderers who "need to be executed." (More execution stories.)