Southern Rites Page #2

a handshake was a man's

bond and that was it.

A handshake was the best...

the best guarantee about

anybody you could ever get.

If that man shook your hand, that was it,

that was the deal, it was done.

This is an old, old book right here.

It's like as old as the hills.

And that was one of the best men ever been

on the face of this earth right there.

My daddy.

Didn't play with him.

And the craziest girl

in the world right there.

Miss Danielle.

I raised Danielle

knowing she was

black when I got her.

That didn't matter to me, I raised her.

I lost people I thought was my friends

because of that, because

she was black, I was white.

We'd go uptown and people

would talk about me.

"You know, there's that"... this

is what would be said there...

"There's that... there's that

white man with that black girl."

You know, it just...

but it didn't matter to me.

After two or three months,

I loved this little girl

just like she was mine.

Just like if I was her

birth parent, and I wasn't.

Woman:
Danielle, hey.

- (baby coos)

- Neesmith:
Hey, doll baby.

- Woman:
Whoa.

- Neesmith:
Hey, doll baby.

Laub:
And how is she

exactly related to you?

My niece is her mama.

But I never... I never

was around her mama much.

My wife didn't even know my niece.

And she left Danielle, this big,

a dirty diaper and...

and a tore-up little T-shirt

on that little baby this big.

I was working at night. When I came home,

I said, "Who's the little baby?"

And she said, "Your niece

brought her." And I said, "Who?"

So I had to think a while,

you know, to figure it out.

I said, "But what did she say?"

She was in a mess. She was

living in Atlanta then,

and she wanted to leave the baby

till she got straightened out.

That was 21 years ago, she never

got straightened out, I don't reckon.

The last time I seen her mama was 1996

when my daddy died.

And I love her to this day,

no matter what she's done,

I still love her.

If she caused all this,

I still love her. You know?

She... I raised her as my child.

And I can't turn my

back all the way on her.

Not 100%, I can't do it.

Laub:
If you were to meet

the Patterson family now,

what would you say to them?

Right now?

I don't know. I don't know.

I can't answer that. I don't know.

Dedee Patterson:
I

have... or I had two sons,

Justin, which was the oldest,

and Shavon being the youngest.

This is really one of my

favorite pictures of them.

I think Justin

may have been probably about four,

and Shavon was one month old.

Justin was a basketball player,

and he played... I mean, he started,

I think, in third grade,

and he played all the way

through his senior year,

and he did not get a chance to play

his college years because he passed away.

Laub:
And tell me what happened to Justin.

You don't go into people's house

unless they knew you was there.

You didn't go up to nobody's house

and walk in if the door was open.

You got permission to do that.

That's something you didn't do.

That's where respect and

disrespect comes from,

just like these two boys that

was in this house right here.

No respect.

Dedee:
Justin had just met this girl

two days ago on Facebook,

and...

you know, Shavon was sharing

with me that

that night, the girls called him

and wanted Justin to come over.

Julius Patterson: The girls was

giving them directions to the house.

It was on a cell phone, talking with them,

and once they

got to the house,

the girls told them to park across the road

to a shed,

like an onion farm.

Neesmith:
They knew it was wrong.

If they didn't know it was wrong,

why would they park over there

and hide the car and walk over here?

The two girls came out and met them.

They talked and whatever

and was invited into the house.

Neesmith:
They know what they were doing.

I don't believe it's their

first time they ever done it.

But I think they...

they've done this stuff...

this wasn't the first time they'd done it.

Not at this house, like, going

in people's houses and stuff,

this ain't the first time

they done it, I know it ain't.

You never get caught the first time.

You don't ever get caught the first time.

Their color has nothing to do with it.

And when people understand that,

then this country would

be a whole lot better off.

We ain't living in the 1920s again.

Shavon Patterson: Me and my

brother, we was real close.

And when I was very young, I

used to always hang out with him,

ride with him everywhere he go.

Laub:
He was your older brother?

Yes, ma'am, I just

always wanting to be like him.

I looked up to him.

Dedee:
Justin and the 19-year-old,

I think her name may have been Danielle...

they went into her bedroom,

and Shavon and the other girl

that was in the house

went into another bedroom.

Julius:
They did not know

that the girl's father

was in the house, asleep.

Dedee:
The man had a gun

that he sleeps with on his nightstand.

He picked the gun up,

because he heard noise in the house.

Norman woke up, came in

the room and he told us...

asked us what we were doing

or whatever, who I was.

That's when I told him.

Then he told us to come in the living room.

Neesmith:
I had a gun, yes.

But it was also two young boys,

muscled up, muscular boys,

somebody who's disabled,

on disability and stuff,

they can't... you can't

fight boys like that.

You'll lose every time.

Julius:
Justin only weighed 110 pounds,

120 pounds, and he's a 200...

almost 300-pound man,

so that was... that's

kind of hard to believe.

I guess, for me,

the hardest thing about all of this

is that they were inviting in...

invited into the house.

I didn't know that.

See, that's what they don't understand.

That night, I ain't get no answers.

That's why I wanted

them boys to sit down over there

and when the police gets here,

you don't want to talk

to me, you talk to them.

In the meantime,

I told the little girl, "You

bring... you call your grandparents"

and tell them to come up here."

You know? I was going give them to them

and to the police,

let them do what they want to do.

You know, I wasn't even going to get in it.

But, see... everything backfired.

Everything backfired.

Dedee:
He told Justin and Shavon

that he could kill them.

He said he can kill us both

and he wouldn't get in trouble

if he killed us or whatever.

Dedee:
They got really scared

and saw a break to run.

Shavon jumps up first,

and Justin jumps up behind Shavon.

Justin saw Norman Neesmith running

behind them, so he pushed

Norman Neesmith over because when he was...

when Norman was aiming the gun,

he was aiming it at Shavon.

He wasn't running away,

he was running to me.

They never sat on my

couch like I asked them to.

He fired a shot at them.

He missed them the first time.

They was trying to unlock the door,

but they could not unlock

the door to get out.

They knocked me over my eating table.

And then he was coming on me

again. Was he coming to help me up?

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