There was heavy security outside the Huntsville Unit, known as "The Walls", with riot police equipped with tear gas and batons. Thousands of protesters showed up outside the prison on the night of Sankofa's execution. Anti-death penalty advocates marched, waved signs and chanted, "Let Gary Graham live!" Prison authorities took no chances, corralling Sankofa's opponents and supporters on separate ends of the imposing brick prison. At one point, about a hundred Sankofa supporters attempted to confront around twenty Ku Klux Klansmen demonstrating in favor of the execution, but the police kept them apart. Two protesters who tried to break through police barricades were tackled by officers, who handcuffed them and took them away.