Manhood Matters Podcast
Conversations around challenges dominating a man's journey through life. These topics are explored by real, everyday friends, with a lot of experience... And we have the occasional expert guest.
Manhood Matters Podcast
Showdown In Sharpsburg
David moved to Sharpsburg, Georgia seeking a peaceful life for his family just 30 minutes from Atlanta. What he found instead was a campaign of harassment that feels ripped from America's darkest past.
From the moment David purchased his home—discovering the white seller had tried charging him $60,000 more than what he accepted from David’s attorney—the stage was set for conflict. Neighbors weaponized local authorities with repeated false reports about his dogs and business. They installed cameras aimed at his property, set up karaoke machines to broadcast racist songs, and even purchased dogs seemingly to intimidate his family.
The situation escalated to life-threatening proportions when, following a verbal confrontation, one neighbor fired a gun at David as he walked away. The other neighbor physically assaulted him, resulting in both neighbors being arrested and temporarily banned from returning home.
Throughout the ordeal, David demonstrates remarkable restraint, even expressing gratitude that he wasn't carrying his own weapon during the confrontation: "That's the one thing that plays in my mind...I thank God I was not put in a position where I was forced to take a life."
The conversation takes an emotional turn when hosts share their own experiences with racism, revealing generational trauma still affecting Black Americans today. One host recounts being forbidden by his father to defend himself against racist bullying, while another shares his father's harrowing escape from potential lynching in 1940s Georgia.
This powerful episode serves as a stark reminder that despite progress, the reality for many Black Americans still includes fighting for dignity and safety in spaces others believe they don't belong. Subscribe to hear more crucial conversations that challenge, inspire, and illuminate the ongoing journey toward true equality.
Email us at manhoodmatterspodcast@gmail.com
Follow us on all Socials: Manhood Matters Podcast
Host: StéphaneAlexandre
IG: @stephanealexandreofficial
Music by Liam Weisner
Sponsored by www.OnsiteLabs.net
(833) 878-3323
So he's just standing there looking up at me, looking at Adam's apple that's how short this dude is. So I turn around and I walk away. I'm about 15 feet or more and then I hear and you will be dead. And he fired at me. Oh, so basically what he thought was going to happen was he did these little slow matrix hand gestures.
Speaker 2:So you could hit him.
Speaker 1:Thinking that I would just be impulsive, that I would be reactionary, that he'll move and I would strike him, and that he would have a reason to shoot me. Oh, you would have had me.
Speaker 2:I'm saying I would have fallen for that shit. I'm going to kick you in your chest. I'm saying so. You would have shot me.
Speaker 2:There is a not so small city, about 30 minutes away from downtown Atlanta, called Sharpsburg. Most of the people that I've met there are wholesome, decent human beings, but the stories you're about to hear will transport you back to America in the 1950s. Our guest today is Dr David Ware, who is a transplant from New York. His life has been threatened, he has been harassed, stalked, and all this in 2025. One of his neighbors even set up a karaoke machine so he can sing racially charged lyrics in order to get a reaction out of David. You will hear a short clip of this nonsense, but I must apologize for the audio quality, since we are pulling it from David's surveillance cameras. This is one episode where you'll need to stay through the very end. Welcome to man show, david. What's going on, brother? How are you so glad you're here, brother? Welcome back, leon. Thank you, david. Why don't you just take us to the beginning, man? So first of all, I want to introduce the city of Sharpsburg, georgia. Where is it?
Speaker 1:It falls right between Peachtree City and Noonan.
Speaker 2:People picture Atlanta and they hear Sharpsburg Sounds like it's 150 miles away.
Speaker 1:No, not at all. It's about 28 to 38 miles south of the Atlanta International Hartfield.
Speaker 2:Airport Gotcha. So I mean from your house to downtown Atlanta. You're there in about 30 minutes.
Speaker 1:About there, 30, 38 minutes, so you're not that far out.
Speaker 2:I just want to make sure that people understand this is not some 40 days and 40 nights to get to some random little hick town somewhere. So take us to the beginning. Man, when did you move there?
Speaker 1:I reached out to this Korean sister that I'm real cool with who's a realtor and I told her I was like, look, get me as close as you can possibly get me to Peachtree City. I didn't want to live in Peachtree City because that's Fayette County and in Fayette County they don't care if you got 50 or 150 acres of land, you only can have three dogs. And I have more than three dogs. I supplement my income with dog breeding as a hobby. So I ended up finding this house in Sharpsburg and it was perfect because I told I said I ain't want no HOA, I wanted to be as close to Peachtree City as possible and when you pulled up the mapping system on Google Maps, my house was right underneath the P in Peachtree City. That that's how close, it was in proximity. So when I first go to see this house, it was a Southern Caucasian gentleman outside.
Speaker 2:You know what I'm saying he's really kind of with the descriptions. Yeah, it was a Southern Caucasian gentleman, southern Caucasian gentleman outside.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it was a real nice neighborhood, real nice. As I was coming in, I seen color. Yeah, you know, it's a real nice neighborhood, real nice, you know, as I was coming in I seen color, you know made me feel a little better. I got out and he was like how you doing? Young man you interested in my house. I said what are you asking? $358,000.
Speaker 1:So that should have been your first red flag, because normally the seller is not present when a real estate agent shows the house. Oh yeah, but nobody wasn't showing it yet.
Speaker 3:This was me going there just to see it on my own, just check it out okay, okay.
Speaker 1:I told him it was the least amount of money you'd be willing to accept. He said for you 350. He said so you interested? I said no, possibly. So I can kind of feel that he was highballing me. So I turned around, I I got all the information reached out to my attorney and told him to do a private purchase. My lawyer emailed him. I guess he saw the email and saw a white face on the email and accepted the low ball. We thinking that you know this, will you know? You start low and you go high. How low was the low ball man? Like $289,000, $290,000.
Speaker 5:So he was going to get you for $60,000 more because you was black when you came in.
Speaker 1:Yeah, pretty much. My lawyer was like look, man, go ahead and handle your business, I'll set everything up. Your credit is stellar. You know you'll be in there in a month and a half. So he finally contacted me and was like, yeah, she's yours. You can go over there and meet with the owner on Saturday. I said okay, 12 o'clock. He's going to give you a handbook and some keys and a little tour of the property. Not a problem, I show up as I'm pulling up to the house and I get out. He goes hey, I remember you, but as you can see, she's old. I said yeah, yeah, I know. He said, yeah, I'm waiting for the new owner right now. Then me and my wife going to Florida. I said, yeah, yeah, I know. He said what do you mean?
Speaker 1:you know, you keep saying you know, what do you know? I said. I know. I said because I'm the new owner. How are you the new owner? I told you I wouldn't accept no less than $350,000 for my own. You did. And then, in his own voice, I said but you told my attorney that you would gladly accept two hundred ninety eight thousand. So he turned, beet red in the face, dropped the book on the fold up chair, dropped his ring of keys on the fold up chair, gripped himself and switched off.
Speaker 1:And I was like, hey, where are you going? Does this mean I don't get the tour? And he just jumped in his car and bounced, so I was happy to get the house. I have like a photographic memory the very first time I came to see the house there was a tree in alignment with the driveway and I could swear that tree was sitting at 12 o'clock. Now the tree was sitting at 1 o'clock. The last house had trees on the incline. Every time it rained the ground was receding. You know what I'm saying. So it was like you know, in Georgia trees tumble over all the time, coming straight out of the root base. So that was like unnerving. Still couldn't ignore this tree situation, but I let it go.
Speaker 2:Yeah, because I'm dying to know where this is going. How do you get a tree from 12 to 1?
Speaker 5:But go ahead Because, as it rains, the ground was softening, so it was leaning. It was leaning, it started to lean.
Speaker 2:Oh, because I'm still like did the whole tree move like real fast? Yeah, exactly, I'm trying to figure it started moving, oh, wow.
Speaker 1:So I turned around now and I order a dumpster Because I got a whole bunch of it. I said, before I start unload, unloading this stuff in the house, let me get this dumpster. And it's a bunch of stuff on the property that I didn't want. So we started cleaning out the attic, cleaning out the basement garages and everything, because these people were old, they were hoarders, they wasn't hoarder hoarders. But you know he held on to all the old tile that was left. You know they hold on to. They held on to all the extras um roof and shingles, stuff for the deck, all that kind of stuff.
Speaker 1:Maybe three weeks to a month later I'm inside the house and the whole house shook. I ran outside on the deck and, oh and behold, that tree fell. That tree hit one tree, the two trees hit a third tree and all three trees hit the guy's shed demolished it. Your neighbor's guy's shed demolished it. Your neighbor's shed. Yeah, okay, yeah, demolished it.
Speaker 1:The guy to the left of me, if I'm standing in the doorway, so I'm standing out there like wow, what a way to make an intro. You know, just moved into this neighborhood. I noticed quickly, while I'm standing on the deck looking, he's standing in the middle of his backyard looking. So I said, hey, who's responsible for that? And he says I don't know. I said, well, I'll call my insurance company. He said, yeah, I'll do the same. Turn around insurance company says well, you know, if any of those trees were dead and you neglected to recognize the fact that they were dead, then you're liable. If them trees are healthy and they fell on their own, it's an act of God. Reliable. If them trees are healthy and they fell on their own, it's an act of God. They sent somebody out that took some plugs out of each of the trees, found out all the trees were healthy. Okay, so it was ruled an act of God.
Speaker 1:This guy being the petty individual, small minded individual that he is, instead of him just coming to me like listen, neighbor, I got a thousand dollar deductible. Can you throw me a few dollars on it? I have everything removed. But at a later date I found out he was supposed to have everything removed anyway. You turn around. He had insurance. Justice came out there and that's what they did. They looked at three trees and his shed. They cut a check for all of that, right? Well, this guy's so petty that when the tree company shows up, he cuts all three of the trees in half on the property line.
Speaker 5:So the trees that fell on his side. He took care of the other half of the tree you had to take care of.
Speaker 1:So he had this guy. I said hey. I said to the tree guy hey, what's going on? He was like psh. He gestured to this guy. I said um, because the insurance company paid for the whole thing.
Speaker 2:The insurance company had paid for the whole thing. For me Correct?
Speaker 1:He turned around and told them to cut it right on the property line. So they removed everything on his property and left everything that was on my property.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's a dickhead.
Speaker 1:So I also found myself one day having my first Karen experience. I walk out to the mailbox. I didn't see nobody, to the right, left, nowhere. I'm looking down at the mail and I turn around and I hear oh, you must be Mr Ware. I said I am who's asking? She said my name is Gail. You must be the one who shysted and such and such out of their home. Shysted. I said I didn't shyst, scam, con anyone.
Speaker 1:An offer was made, an offer was accepted and I am now the new owner. So you say. I said well, you know what? Let's try it like this For the remainder of the time that I'm here in black and breathing and you are here. I said you don't have to worry about anything that takes place with me in this property because you can stay the F out of my business. So she was like huh. So she switched off. I said here we go First Karen. After the he did the pettiness with cutting a tree on the property line. I ordered the dumpster but I got an audience Neighbors to the left, neighbors to the right, neighbors, directly across the street. Everybody's looking at this truck back the dumpster down the driveway. So I was like well, well you know, some people entertain, you know, very easily entertained.
Speaker 1:Yeah, three days in on the dumpster, hey, mr dave, I mean, somebody called me. I look up this dude next door. You know the tree, the tree guy. Um, I see you got yourself a dumpster there. Yeah, well, I would like to know, can I put a few things in your dumpster? Now? You know, first thought process was hell, two f's. No, I just can't be that petty. You know I'm saying so.
Speaker 2:I said to myself leon's over here like having a damn mini stroke you all right, brother?
Speaker 5:no because my reaction was it would have been his first one. Are you kidding me? Yeah, I mean it was the reason why it's costing me to have this dumpster is because you were petty, but now you want to throw something in it, right yeah.
Speaker 1:So me, I always try to be the bigger person.
Speaker 5:So I say to him I'm working on that and I know it's Sunday, but yeah, I walk.
Speaker 1:So I gesture for dude to come over. I I said, sir, let me explain something to you. I don't have a problem with you putting anything in that dumpster, but you need to know ahead of time that anything that you put in that dumpster you will contribute to the cost of that dumpster. Are we clear? He was like, oh yes, most definitely. I started waiting for him to put something in the dumpster. He would never put anything in the dumpster when I was around. So I turn around, I leave, go run some errands and I come back.
Speaker 5:And I see why when I come back you know we got like two hot water heaters, an old dresser you know what I'm saying Three tires, so obviously he's got some help with putting stuff in there.
Speaker 1:Put a bicycle he had a grandson over there that was in his early twenties, you know put an old bicycle in there and about four or five, maybe six bags of trash, 55 gallon joints. So me, being a proactive individual that I am, I take out my cell phone, I took a picture and I sent it to the dumpster company and I said, if I was to have this, this picked up and this only, how much would it cost? It was like 150, 180. So I go looking for dude. I can't find him. He ducking me, take me three days to find him. So I finally roll up on him and he's all startled. I said, hey, what's going on, neighbor? He said, hey, what's going on, what can I do for you? I said, what can you do for me? I said I've been trying to seek you out to get that bread, that money, your financial contribution to the dumpster. Oh, I don't remember us having that discussion. You don't remember us having that discussion. I said, bro, I'm from New York City, I'm from up top Jersey, new York, and I know I made it crystal clear that you was going to contribute to the cost. He says he has a hearing impediment. He don't remember that conversation.
Speaker 1:But how much you looking for anyway, all of what you put in there? Solely $150 to $180. Well, I don't have $150 or $180 and I ain't taking all that stuff out of that dumpster. Me and my grandson went through hell putting all that stuff in the dumpster. I said, oh, you don't have the money and you ain't going to take nothing out of the dumpster, not a problem. I missed the gadget. I got a small, medium, large and extra large hand truck. I guess he didn't think I would, but I strapped that extra large hand truck up three times and drug all that stuff up the driveway and across the property line and put it in the middle of his driveway.
Speaker 2:That's a lot of work, that is so exhausting just listening to him that would have been me.
Speaker 5:Yeah, but I didn't care. I'd have done the same thing. I didn't care, because I'm, you know, I can be king pitch. Yeah, I didn't care I didn't care.
Speaker 1:He just needed to learn man. Yeah, first of all, I already went against my own judgment by allowing him to put anything in there. I mean, I really wanted to just hurt his feelings the first time, like you, had the audacity to come in my face and ask me for anything. After that petty nonsense. Now, when he came home and saw this, oh, he was hotter than fish grease, as they say. You know what I'm saying. He was hot, he was out there on his cell phone talking loud, he's marching, he's mad and he's walking around and stuff. It sat there for about three 24-hour periods. They didn't move it to like the fourth day and that was it right there, bro, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1:Like what they say, what is understood does not need to be explained. It was nothing to talk about. We done so. Now I love dogs, got my dogs running my property. Every time my dogs run my property, old boy, we talking about, you know, the dumpster calls animal control. Okay, I got a little wellness office in my home that I work periodically, periodically when I'm, you know, not on my job clock and when I have clients come over. His compadre, which is a mexican gentleman who lives directly across the street from me.
Speaker 5:Every time clients come over he calls the sheriff's department and reports us for illegal parking because they're parking in front of your house, on the street they're parking in front of street.
Speaker 1:So every time animal animal is that in fact illegal? No, animal control came out nine times, about seven to nine times. Didn't find anything wrong, no infractions, no, nothing Matter of fact. Even two out of the nine times they knew. I didn't know they was coming, so I just let them have a tour of my house and how I keep my dogs and everything, and that won me a lot of brownie points with them. Because he's like man. The man was transparent. He know he's coming. Let's see his dogs all healthy. You feed him top shelf. His dogs eat better than we do. So I'm due across the street. Come to find out. He's the compadre to do next door, or at least getting cool behind me.
Speaker 5:Enemy of my enemy is my friend type situation. There you go, I was going to say so the Hispanic, do forget, he's a brown person.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, there you go. I was noticed, is very, very true. A lot of Hispanics that I've personally dealt with in the corporate world or in just in life in general. When it serves them to lean more on the dark side, they will I mean, they'll sit here and dog the white dude and talk to me about you know these white people, blah, blah. But the second they get favor with the white person, they will do everything in their power to see if there is a way they can, in their mind, elevate to that status. There's no elevation there, but in their mind it's like, if I can be close to this person, I will gang up on this other brother right here, because it serves their purpose, because they need to be accepted exactly.
Speaker 1:And um, the dude next, the, the Mexican gentleman across the street. He definitely was of a warped mentality because he used to brag about the fact that he had white people cleaning his house.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know what I'm saying yeah, but I have noticed all my life that you have certain groups of Latino Hispanics who always brown those up against white people because they want to be white badly, ground those up against white people because they want to be white badly. And things between me and the Mexican gentleman escalated because one day he purposely parked his pickup truck directly across from my driveway, meaning if somebody's coming to pull in the driveway Back out, they can't get out. If they're trying to pull in the driveway, it's hard to get in the driveway. I mean they can do it, but they got to finagle because he's right across from the driveway and if somebody's backing out it's funny, they got to finagle. So I was having I have a 501c3 nonprofit organization that's registered with the United Nations called Humanities Hope for Healing. So I was having a Humanities Hope for Healing meeting and we had cars everywhere and that's nothing new in the neighborhood. Everybody has these little cookouts and little gatherings and they got cars parked everywhere. Yeah, so dude sees all these cars parked over on my side of the street, got, he has the biggest driveway in the neighborhood, one of them big, giant horseshoe driveways and then still got another driveway to go to a garage to another section so you got plenty of parking. He comes down off his property and parks his Toyota pickup directly across from my driveway. A Uber Eats vehicle was backing out. It was a Mini Cooper. The car was so small that it backed into his tire. It never even touched the body of the vehicle and the person barely nudged it, pulled up off it and he left.
Speaker 1:Well, at a later date he must have checked his video cameras and seen that his vehicle was hit in spite of the fact that there was no visible damage. He went on the warpath. He's running around outside in front of his house talking trash about. Somebody hit his vehicle, so my doorbell rings and it's the wife. I made a beeline straight out the front door across my lawn and I walked up to him and caught him off guard. He turned around and saw a chest, looked up hey man, you're standing too close to me and I said listen, bro, I hear that there is an issue. Yeah, there's an issue. Somebody hit my truck. Show me your truck, bro. Show me where your truck got hit at. Right here. Give me these little light hand gestures Right here. Give me these little light hand gestures right here. Right here, show me the damage right here, right here, what? There's no visible damage. I'm not going to go out here and be playing private investigator to run down a situation that there's no, there's no visible damage. And I said next time you you know it's a problem, come to me, don't send your wife. He ain't like that at all.
Speaker 1:Next thing, you know, I go away on business for three days. You know I make these little holistic health wellness bundles and my clients come to the house to pick the bundles up and my kids was giving them to him in spite of the fact that I'm not there. So as clients were pulling up, coming to the house getting bundles, everybody who had a black car he was running down on them. Well, he messed up.
Speaker 1:One of the individuals he ran down was a Fulton County sheriff's wife and she was livid and then she got one of those husbands that the sun rises and sets on her. He's the kind of dude that even tell you if my wife is in your company, you're responsible for my wife. So she's all upset and she's talking about how she's going to call her husband and I'm like please, let's not do this. So I go over there and I just go beast mode on dude, but I'm monotone with it. I said yo man, child, you really need to grow up. This last woman you didn't ran up on I said you didn't ran up on. I said it's not like everybody's not somebody, but this woman is somebody, somebody. And the somebody is he's a Fulton County sheriff, fulton County Sheriff. And I said, dude, we'll literally bro, come up here from Fulton County and skull F you over his wife. After that, all these police coming to the house. So now that we got several animal control calls, it's a lot of harassment, bro, yeah a lot of harassment.
Speaker 1:So now one day they ended up calling both. Now I'm standing at the end of my driveway with animal control and the Sheriff's Department and we have a conversation we the three of us and they turn around and go to these two gentlemen and let them know at this point you're harassing mr, where you're trying to weaponize us against him. We now see it. It's recognized and noted. Yeah, you call us over here again and it's a fictitious situation again. Fill out a report in the petition towards the court of harassment against the two of y'all well, my problem or question is is that them being called that many times?
Speaker 5:those are false police reports. Why is there no charges against him or?
Speaker 1:anything like that exactly. That definitely crossed my mind multiple times. But I'll let them do their thing. I'll'll let them cook. Now both of them decide to go get dogs and weaponize the dogs. At this point now my spirit says go out and buy a surveillance system. So I buy the best one. I have the company come out professionally install it and everything. I mean this thing got all the bells and whistles Soon as the system goes up.
Speaker 1:I come out my house one day and there's a dog standing in front of my door growling at me. I chased the dog off. Over the next couple of days dog is in this yard growling at different family members. So I walked right up to the property line. I said let me speak to you for a minute. He was like what do you want? I said look, I don't know what's up with you and this dog. But I noticed that y'all went into some shelter somewhere and got some dog. This dog ain't even no puppy. Nobody don't know this dog. This dog is growling at my kids, growling at me.
Speaker 1:Keep this dog on your side of the property, sounds reasonable. I'm saying keep your dog off my property. Well, you, you don't want, want to be talking. You're saying your dogs be all over the place. I said, look, I'm not gonna go back and forth with you. This is a courtesy. If I catch that dog on my property again, I'm gonna make him disappear. So at this time the wife didn't got out the hook, she didn't pull it in the driveway while we're talking. She gets out. She's hearing the conversation. She act like she wants smoke.
Speaker 2:She trying to get to me what you mean trying to get to you like she want to fight no way.
Speaker 1:Yeah, like when I said to them I catch the dog on my property again, I'm gonna make it disappear yeah she's. I wish you would put your hands on my dog, touch my dog, boom, boom. I'm like she. I said man, cut her loose, let her go. I said I understand that you wear the pants over there. I see you doing all the work and she working every day. I see her leaving. I said but let me explain something to you. I'm saying you run up on me acting like a man.
Speaker 2:I'm gonna treat you like a man and that's for any man, but this is an audio, so there's no visualization. How tall are you?
Speaker 1:I'm almost six eight and you're in good shape so yeah, it ain't six, eight, in fact, this is a six eight brother in great shape right and she wants to run up on you, right, exactly she and she about she, about five, three, yeah, about 200 pounds. Oh my god, I'm saying so. They took what I said serious because immediately they put a, they installed electric fence electric yeah, oh for the dog, dog okay jesus christ, I bought they immediately installed electric fence like one of those invisible fences.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So the dog? The dog knows he get a little shock. He come too close to the property. So now the dog is over there. So now the Mexican gentleman across the street, he goes and purchase a German shepherd, running all over the place. Wow, you know, they ain't get the dog no kind of training. And as the dog gets bigger he's exploring his horizons.
Speaker 5:So let me ask you a question. So is your property fenced in? No, my property's not fenced in. It's not fenced in. Your neighbor's property is not fenced in? Nope, and the one across the street ain't fenced in. But your dogs are smart enough to stay within your property Exactly my dogs. They own my property, but their dogs run wild.
Speaker 1:Well, the one don't run wild no more because they put an electric fence on him. You would think they would have shared that information with their friend across the street because this situation started escalating. So now this German Shepherd is really getting bucked. He chasing folks. I got video on my phone right now. He chasing Instacart guy Cost me a client.
Speaker 1:I had a client that I had to reimburse $1,900 to, and when she called me for the appointment she heard a dog bark and she said something about. She got this phobia of dogs. She's scared to death Dogs. Please. You know, put your dogs up when I come, I told you you ain't got to worry about it, you ain't going to see no dogs. Oh and behold, she comes to my house in an Uber. She comes in and gets her service. Everything's explained to her. She paid for full. As she's leaving my house, the German shepherd runs across the street onto my property, slides up behind her, chases her into the Uber. She's slipping and falls right into the Uber. She ain't hurt herself, but she literally ran right into the Uber.
Speaker 2:Yeah, even without a phobia. It's a German shepherd looking at you, right?
Speaker 1:And she's hollering and screaming and she's flipping, and she's flopping. She gets in the car and she's gone, yeah, so next thing, you know she ain't even out the subdivision yet and she's blowing up my phone. David, I told you I don't do dogs, and this and this and this and this and the third. I said I'm sorry that that happened to you. I saw everything on the camera. That's not my dog. Well, I'm being honest, you know I'm saying, you know my head is hurting, I know my pressure is up right now, and this and this and that and that. Can you please cash out me back my money in full? Yeah, I'm pissed. So the situation still continues to escalate.
Speaker 1:I'm out there one day with the kids and the German Shepherd runs from their yard to the Navy's yard next door and I didn't know the dog was over there. So the dog comes blindsides us, comes from the left, runs across and snaps at one of the children Like he's trying to grab the child, to run away with the child. I take everybody into the house and then I'm hearing my sensor going off on my security system. So I checked the cameras. The dog is on my property. He's running around on my property. So I go to the back porch, my back deck, so I bust at him, misses him, him. But he's scared and he runs out of my yard like his tail is on fire were you actually trying to get him or you just wanted to shoot in this direction?
Speaker 2:I ain't gonna lie.
Speaker 1:I was trying to get him. I was high, the dog, literally the dog. We got the dog on camera, literally his mouth opening wide trying to grab my little cousin's daughter. Yeah, I'm saying teeth flaring. We got it all on video. So, yeah, I was trying to capture him. I miss him. He goes running off the yard. I mean tearing.
Speaker 1:First of all, as soon as the shot goes off, everybody's scattering around the neighborhood. And then, while you're scattering, everybody's looking, trying to figure out what's going on. You see this dog exiting my property with quickness, is hollering and screaming oh my God, such and such. I actually thought the dog was running like that because he had been shot. And everybody's so concerned about the dog, trying to catch up to the dog, wanting to see if the dog's okay, yada, yada, yada.
Speaker 1:So my doorbell rings. I got like seven sheriffs in front of my house. What's all the shooting about? I said I don't recall calling y'all about any shooting. No, the Navy said you're out here shooting at the dog. I said really, I'm not shooting at anything. How can I help you? So they come at me being you know being accusatory. I said are you coming over here to investigate? Are you coming over here being accusatory. I said because if you want to come and investigate, ask some questions, cool, Come over here being accusatory. Then that's where I stop and my lawyer begins. Oh, you got an attorney. Who's your attorney? Then I reach in my pocket and I say you know, take your pick, Pull out two cards. So while they're talking to me, I didn't even know until I checked the video cameras, that three police officers was around the back. They didn't give them permission to be walking around on my property, but they went back there and seen a couple of my big dogs so they stayed at the outskirts of my property. So they ended up going about their business.
Speaker 5:Now, what is that? Fayette County, that's Coweta, oh Coweta.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's Coweta County.
Speaker 2:Even the name says chills down your spine.
Speaker 5:I know the county well, coweta County. Yeah, I know the county.
Speaker 1:So after this incident, everything escalates to hand gestures and mean mugging and petty epithets, name calling and all this kind of stuff. I could care less. Say whatever you want to say. Spell my name right. They're trying to escalate the situation to a physical.
Speaker 5:So that you could get arrested.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 5:Everything they tried to do to get you arrested Exactly.
Speaker 1:So but they don't know how to escalate because name calling doesn't escalate to physical. You want to escalate the physical, you've got to get physical. So one day I come into my garage and hit the garage door and the garage door goes up. So as the garage door goes up, the dog next door with the electric fence comes running straight up to the property line barking refusiously at me. So I said shut up, get out of here, you cur. And then dude sticks his head off the porch because I drive, our garages face one another. So I see a head peek off the porch. He looks, he comes down the steps, walks up to the property line and say what you say to my dog.
Speaker 2:What you say to my dog. What you say to my dog, what?
Speaker 1:you say to my dog because you hurt his feelings, right? I said, man, get your raggedy old ass out of here, you don't want no problems. He said keep it up. Keep it up and smack the shit out you and put you in your place. I said what? And pointed gesture to the street man, ain't nothing but room, time and opportunity. So we I go straight to the street.
Speaker 1:I didn't notice until after I checked the footage, what he was doing prior to going to the street. But we make it down to the street and I'm standing there and he makes these two matrix hand gestures in my face real slow. He goes and waves his hand in my face. So I back up. He goes and does it a second time. I back up. I said dude, look, stop playing with me. You already know if you put your hands on me I'm going to put you in a box. So he's just standing there looking up at me, looking at Adam's apple that's how short this dude is. So I turn around and I walk away. I'm about 15 feet or more and then I hear and you will be dead.
Speaker 2:And he fired at me. Oh, he fired at me, so that's what he went to do. When you went to the street, he was getting a gun.
Speaker 1:So basically what he thought was going to happen was he did these little slow matrix hand gestures so you could hit him, thinking that I would just be impulsive, that I would be reactionary, that he'll move and I would strike him, and then he would have a reason have had me.
Speaker 2:I'm saying I would have fallen for that shit. I'm going to kick you in your chest. I'm saying so you would have shot me, yeah.
Speaker 1:So as soon as he fires the gun, his compadre, the Mexican, hears it the gunshot. So you don't get hit. No, I don't get hit.
Speaker 5:So he wasn't trying to kill you.
Speaker 1:He was trying to scare you, he to intimidate. I guess he thought I was going to be ducking and running. I'm like dude, I'm from New York. I said we don't do warnings around here, so I'm still standing there. So the Mexican comes marching out immediately, comes marching out right up to me, sticks his hands in my face. I smack his hand down and I jump back. He, he flexes on me. I'm standing there unfazed. He turns to the white dude and says give me the gun. Give me the gun, I'll shoot him, I'll kill him. Give me the gun, I'll shoot him, I'll kill him. So dude doesn't relinquish the weapon. So the Mexican dude balls up his fist and then tries to sucker, punch me, knocks my glasses off my face. We square up in the street. Now we fighting. You know I got hands, so I'm catching him.
Speaker 1:Well, in this melee I fracture both of my hands and both of my wrists. So at this time this established in his mind that this guy got long arms, he can hit hard and all this stuff. I don't know if he quite figured out that I was injured, but he definitely came to the conclusion that he could not fight me fair. So he rushes in and plants my foot to the ground, like what I'll be doing to my sons. My sons try to run and I'll plant their foot to the ground. They slide out, fall down, and I got them. And when he plants my foot to the ground as I'm trying to move back, I slowly drift to the ground. Soon as my butt touches the ground, he rushes in, punches me in the mouth. He sees I'm totally unfazed. So he rushes in one more time and knees me in the top of the head. So when he needs me, the top of the head. I never got hit in top of the head before, very disoriented. Every time I stand up, I'm falling, I stand up, I'm falling, I stand up. So I stand up and fall. About three times. The third time he puts his left hand on my right shoulder and says stay down, diablo negro, stay down, diablo negro, I'll kill you, I'll kill you, I'll kill you. Stay down, diablo Negro. So then the neighbor to the right, who's the air marshal? He comes out. What the hell is going on? Stop this madness, or whatever he was saying. So Steve is a neutral party. He knows both, but he's not involved.
Speaker 1:The Mexican gentleman goes up to the white gentleman, takes the gun out and hit the white gentleman's hand, goes into the white gentleman's house and hides the weapon. You know what I'm saying. Then here comes Coweta. They fill up the county yeah, they come in there hard and fast, yeah. So they turn around, they walk up to him where's the gun? So evidently somebody must have reported something, because as soon as the police got out, they didn't come to me and ask for no gun. They walked straight up to him and said where the gun at he's like, what gun he's like. Look, we can get CID out here and get a warrant. Well, we all standing out there from 6 o'clock in the evening to 1130 at night before they made the first arrest. They arrested the white gentleman Because he shot at you. Yeah, cid came in. They go in there. They find the gun.
Speaker 1:So they come out, they arrest him. Then at 12 o'clock midnight they arrest the Mexican. After they had viewed all these videos and everything, I go to the hospital. Both of them was in jail for about a week.
Speaker 2:Wow, that's surprising.
Speaker 1:Yeah, he was in jail for about a week, a little shy of a week, I would say about five, six days. So when the white gentleman comes home, the judge who arraigned him was pissed. He told me he can't be within 300 yards of Mr Ware, so dude had to go to Delaware. He had to leave the state and go to Delaware to a family house or somewhere. Only thing I know he was gone for four and a half months and he was pissed because evidently he must have been costing him money wherever he was at, because he went and got himself an attorney. An attorney kept trying to make an attempt to modify this situation so he could come home and he wouldn't do it. The Mexican disappeared too. Where he went, I don't know. I didn't see him hardly at all. Well, as soon as everybody goes to wherever they went, the grandson retaliates against me. The grandson like 23, 24 years old.
Speaker 1:My goddaughter and her mother came to the house and while they were taking groceries and stuff out of the car to come into the back side of my house, my sensor alarms started going off. And, mind you, it's dark, it's nighttime. I go out on the back deck and I got one of them moonbeam-type flashlights. One of them, you know, like light up a whole football field. So I go out on the back deck and I don't have the flashlight on yet, but I'm just looking and lo and behold, I turn the light on. Poof Dude is up in the tree In the tree, in the tree. He's in the tree On your property, no, on the property line. It's a tree Gotcha, right on the property line. Dude is in the tree mounting a camera on the tree, okay, looking at his phone as he's aligning the camera, pointing the camera at my family members, okay. When that sunbeam light hit him, he froze up like a raccoon. I'm saying like I don't see you, oh my God.
Speaker 1:And he's just sitting there.
Speaker 2:You can't make this shit up.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you can't make it up, bro. He's just on top of the ladder with his back to me being still not moving. I'm like you can't see me. You can. The ladder, with his back to me being still not moving, like you can't see me. You can't see me. Like he, like he, like he using like he, using a jedi mind trick or something. He finally comes down, grabs the ladder, runs off with the ladder. I call the police. They go in, running around out there, they catch him and arrest him in my driveway.
Speaker 1:No way, yeah, yeah there you go being put right in the police car yeah, no, why?
Speaker 2:why was he?
Speaker 1:being arrested. Stalking, oh stalking and harassment.
Speaker 5:They arrested him, so they the family's already been warned for harassment.
Speaker 2:I thought was just the grandfather, so the whole family.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, well, basically the all of them complicit. Yeah, they want a w so bad they taking L's left and right. And now here comes the Mexican and the German shepherd again. I took him back and forth to court, so much to the point that the situation became so egregious they locked him up for a week and gave him a $1,000 fine for the dog.
Speaker 5:Yeah, that's serious Now mind you.
Speaker 1:He already out on bail for assaulting battery on me. So everybody breaks down like he's going to the electric chair. Bro, you would think that he was going to the electric chair. He's going. You know what I'm saying. The way they was acting in this courtroom, yeah, bro, I'm sitting there looking at these people like are you for real?
Speaker 2:Yeah, to them it's a psychological loss more than anything. A week in jail sucks for any damn body, right, but when you think about it, I think for them it's like how dare you Exactly?
Speaker 1:So he gets locked up. He got paid a $1,000 fine. As soon as he comes out of jail he comes back to the house one time and he disappears. I literally haven't seen him back over there since July, the 8th of last year. Really, yeah, he hasn't been home. He comes to court Okay of last year.
Speaker 2:Really yeah, he hasn't been home.
Speaker 1:He comes to court, okay, but he don't live over there no more. I think she didn't kick them out.
Speaker 2:You're dealing with all this stuff. It's been going on for what? Two years, three years.
Speaker 1:Well, I've been living there five years. They've been harassing me for three, yeah, and I've been taking them in and out of court for a little video of the whole karaoke incident. Tell us about that, right? So, um, the grandson bails out and he's pissed. You know he was already calling himself trying to retaliate against me because his grandfather got locked up and couldn't come back to the house anything for, like I would say, about a week and a half, two weeks. Every day he'd see me come home outside, he'd get on this karaoke machine and make these, um, racial epithets and all these sexual vulgarities.
Speaker 1:I mean, it gets worse than what? Than the audio than you have? And only thing I did is just continue to just keep documenting, documenting, documenting, documenting. One day situation really gets out of hand. My god, sister was over there with her daughter, it was in. It was like four or five women, me and my son, we all in the backyard and the neighbors were all huddled up in the driveway In your driveway, no, in their driveway. And as we driving up my driveway to get ready to leave, I looked to the left and somebody said some racial nonsense.
Speaker 1:Somebody said some racial nonsense and I immediately hit the brake through the car into park and jumped out and told him keep on pressing. I said you can have all the problems you want to have with me all day long. Now y'all fucking with my family. I said keep them fucking around and I got something for your asses. You white niggas. That white nigga shit hit them and that was it. Everybody leaned back. Brother, it was all messed up. I know it was effective because you know how I know it was effective.
Speaker 2:Three days later had that eight foot fence up so I want to play the audio of what you sent me, okay, and then I want us to hear it, because this is so, set this up for us before I play it like I said, the grandson, every day he seen me outside he would get his karaoke machine and basically, you know, call me a monkey and so right now we're gonna listen to it so we can get both our reactions to it.
Speaker 2:You're in your driveway doing some work. Looks like you're doing some. It's seed spreader yeah, seed spreader. There you go. You're standing out there and you can hear the audio. So he's taking. The karaoke speaker pointed pointing it at the right-?
Speaker 1:No, he just went in his garage and wheeled it out and just stood out there in front of his garage with the microphone in his hand.
Speaker 2:And he was singing, so I'm singing, all right. So there you go. Here's what he's singing right now.
Speaker 4:Me and my monkey. I'm in a ball Monkey comes along, me and my monkey. Get in the car. Me and my monkey Walking through the town. Me and my monkey Go on a ride Up in town. I love you Walking through the town with my monkey, monkey, monkey, we will be in the monkey. We will be in the monkey.
Speaker 2:All right. Well, he could hold a note, but I think what's interesting here? David has zero reaction. He just keeps doing what he's doing, right? What are your thoughts when you hear this, Leon?
Speaker 5:I'm enraged because I had a similar incident to this when I was in high school. But that comment enrages me, that you are comparing me to an animal. I was 17, and I showed him what an animal can do when they get their hands on you.
Speaker 2:You didn't have the maturity that he had, because this is happening. How old are you now? I'm 57. Holy shit, dude. I thought you were like 45.
Speaker 1:No, I'm 57. But that's what's up. Racism is something that I've dealt with in my youth, but my father was the type of person that he craved the white lifestyle. You know, saying anything that you know. He was the type of person that always think white man's ice cubes is colder than everybody else's.
Speaker 1:My father felt less of a man living in the family's estate, so he moved us to a town called Cranford, new Jersey, to a town called Cranford, New Jersey, and in Cranford, new Jersey, they kept the black folks at the north side of the town and the south side of the town. I didn't have a stamp on my forehead that said I was the black with money living in the middle of the town. Most of the blacks who did have money lived on the north side and most of the blacks who didn't have money lived on the south side, and I got caught in the middle. My mother would dress me to the nines and send me to school every day and them white boys would rip my clothes up, smack me around. My father put me in a corner one day and told me that I couldn't fight back. Put me in the corner and say my ben, I never catch me here by me fighting why? Why was that?
Speaker 1:He was on some Jesus Christ turn the other. Cheek type situation, jesus got your back type situation. I bet I never hear anything about you fighting and even a couple of times that I got into a couple of scuffs. As soon as I got home, this man stripped me butt naked you know what I'm saying beating me with stinging cords and stuff like that. You know what I'm saying, blistering up my skin and all kinds of stuff. Every time I'd give into a little hiccup.
Speaker 2:So then, violence was okay when he inflicted it.
Speaker 1:Exactly so here it is. I can't protect myself. So when these little young white boys in town figured out, oh he ain't going to fight back, I got a ruptured testicle right now from getting jumped from white boys. It got to from getting jumped from white boys.
Speaker 2:It got sick. You can't. Oh man, yeah, what you just heard was leon slamming down the headphones and walking away to gather himself. Um, the conversation just became too painful. At this point. People don't understand, right? You know, we're all in our 40s and 50s and these things come back and they're still so very painful it is, but what's even more painful is the fact that in 2024-25 you're still living. Oh, we all are right.
Speaker 2:I deal with this shit every day, about every one of us. We deal with it every single day. I wouldn't have to think too hard to give you the latest incident. The reason I wanted to talk about your story is because you have so many things documented, you have so much going on, but it's still inflicting a lot of pain and people are hearing it and you know people listening to this will listen to it, and just when we can laugh it off, we'll laugh it off. Right, we laugh to keep from crying and people being emboldened. In this particular age and this particular climate, things are getting. We don't see them getting better. We see them getting worse, and to hear your stories in 2024, 2025, it's rough.
Speaker 5:So I'm sorry, it's all right, I had to get up and remove myself, man. So I grew up in Detroit because my dad had to leave Savannah Georgia. My dad was 50 when I was born, so this was 1942. He was 19 years old and he was on a bus. If you were in Savannah Georgia or ever been to Savannah Georgia, there's a street called Broad Street. Yeah, I've been there. So Broad Street was the side of town. The black folks stayed on and then I don't particularly know what the white side of town. The black folks stayed on and then I don't particularly know what the white side of town was. So dad was on the bus coming home. He was attending Savannah State, which was at the time Georgia College.
Speaker 5:White man gets on the bus and they ride and then they let off on Broad Street and the white guy says, oh, I guess we in Nickerville. And laughs and it enraged my dad so much he stayed on the bus. They get to the guy's stop. The guy gets off the bus. He goes out the front door, of course, because they sit in the front. Dad gets off the back because he sits in the back. Bus pulls off, the guy starts walking. My dad follows him, runs up to him, taps him on the shoulder and as soon as he turns around he punches him, knocks him down Wow, dad carried a switchblade.
Speaker 5:Pulls out the switchblade, puts it to his neck and said I guess you in Nickerville now. He said I ride that bus every day. If I ever hear you say those words again, I'll kill you, Put the knife up, turns around, runs back toward his side of town. The white man gets up, runs toward his side of town, never to see each other again. The lucky thing is my dad got home and him and his mother were extremely close. He told his mother what he did. She immediately got him out of town. Yeah, that was smart.
Speaker 2:This is the late 40s.
Speaker 5:She immediately got him on a bus and sent him to Tampa to stay with relatives. And I'm shaking telling you that story because I can't imagine being told not to fight back. Yeah, it was hard, it's insane. My dad and my grandfather, if any white man, black man, green man, man, put his hands on you and you don't fight back. That's a problem. You got to do without a problem.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 5:Yeah, we don't take no ass whoopings in this house. Well, if we, if we take them, it's because we ain't, because we wasn't fighting.
Speaker 1:Exactly. It got to a point where it had to end. So this whole situation with this showdown in sharpsburg. I'm not a stranger to racism. You know, I went to school overseas in the uk. Same situation when the situation got so out of hand with the school and at the age of 13 my mother sent me over, you know, overseas to go to school, and it's the same thing. Now they're hating you because you're american, hating you because you're black, it's always something yeah hating you because you're smart enough to be in this.
Speaker 1:You know this young and gifted program type situation. But I've always had a winning personality, you know. And one thing my grandmother and my family always taught me, they said, as a black man, in order to be valued you must specialize. So I've always gone into specialty fields, as far as employment and even being down here in the south. I see here in georgia how they treat black people from georgia. They treat different from black people from up north, up north, absolutely. You know I'm saying you know I moved to sharpsburg because I wanted my children to have a cool, calm, collected, quiet, laid-back, reserved life. Yeah, real good school systems out there. I ain't going to lie, I really didn't see none of this coming man.
Speaker 2:No one could have.
Speaker 2:I've been in the South since 2006. I've experienced a lot of racism but when I heard your story I was like that's some next level bullshit. I've had my life threatened. I've had, you know, the guns pulled on me by those who were sworn to serve and protect, didn't matter what I looked like, what I was dressed in, what the environment was. It's happened, but that story was one that I wanted to share. I do thank you, david, for for coming through and sharing that. I know it brought up a lot of emotions, you know, just not just from recently, but from your childhood as well. I know Leon. I know he brought up a lot of emotions in you as well. I'm trying to keep it together, man, because none of that stuff. People hear it and most of us go through life acting like we're not faced by it, but psychologically there's so much trauma that we have to put up with and deal with and even now, when it comes down to these neighbors.
Speaker 1:Man, I pity these people, bro, I know I'm I have not always been like this, but I know, I know I'm not a fucked up dude. I could. I could still watch, just like yesterday. I'm watching some show. They call them I guess they call people like me empaths I can watch a movie. Man, I'll be sitting up there crying, bro, I can feel the pain. I can feel everybody's pain. I've always been a person who can feel everybody's pain and I've always been a person who can feel everybody's pain. And then I always used to think, damn, I used to really think that I was a fucked up dude.
Speaker 1:I did everything in my power to try not to become my father bro, fighting them demons for years, even when they come down on my own sons. That's the biggest war I've been dealing with, trying to make it my business not to become like this man and got to a point where I was actually about to become him, and that's when I met pakka khan and he started teaching me how to pick my, choose my battles, how to walk away from certain situations. You already know who you are. You know the power and the skill and the talent you possess. You ain't got nothing to prove me being who I am.
Speaker 1:People, since I've been living down here in the south, they poke the bear. They want to make that nigga come out, dude. They really want to be justified. Oh, look at him. There it is. You're saying yeah, and I refuse to give that to them. That's right, it's your power. I'm saying I refuse to. That's why, even with this whole situation, with this showdown in sharpsburg, normally I carry every day. You know what torments me more than any of this mess that happened up there is the fact that I carry every day. And this one particular day when dude threatened my life and shot at me when my back turned, that's what plays in my mind. What would had happened if I would have carried you?
Speaker 5:probably killed him.
Speaker 1:It wasn't, no, probably any. He would have been dead. I would have heard, and you would have been dead, and I would have heard that gunshot and I would have drawn turned and I would have tapped him up, yeah, and that he would have made me a killer. That's right. That's. The one thing that plays in my mind is the fact that I thank God I was not carrying, and was not put in a position where I was forced to take a life.
Speaker 2:You just said a little while ago you said you're not a fucked up dude, and what I'm hearing. You talked about empathy and then your power to connect to people emotionally and feel their pain. And I think there's way more to not just I'm not a fucked up dude, and I think there's way more to not just I'm not a fucked up dude. It speaks to the goodness in your heart, to where the concern for you right now is not so much anything other than what he would have made you become, because it's something you're trying to get away from even though it would have been justified Because I got to tell you.
Speaker 2:I don't think I would have felt bad about it personally. So that's just me. But then again, we fight different demons. Right, we've all had our battles and we fight different demons every single day. Again, I do want to thank you for sharing your story, man. We've got more than enough here. But to end on a lighter note, right, because we need to breathe. We're going to need to decompress from this man. I'm telling you we are going to go back to Leon who who lost the coin toys a little earlier today and we're gonna.
Speaker 5:You got them cameras. I want to replay the coin that's a good one, yeah because we just decided.
Speaker 2:You know what I was. The whole time he was talking, the whole time I was like I never realized. I talked to david several times before, right, I never realized how much he sounds like denzel. He could easily, easily do an impression, but it's not his turn, it's yours, bro.
Speaker 1:Ah, there we go. I think it should be Cat. Leave us I think it needs to be Cat Williams. There you go.
Speaker 5:Can you do? Cat Williams, I give it my best Give it your best Cat Williams impression.
Speaker 2:Take us out, Leon.
Speaker 3:Leave us a five-star review on Apple Podcasts. Thank you so much for listening, and we'll catch you next week when we share conversations directly from the barbershop. Manhood Matters and we're out. Let's go baby. Yo, you funny as hell. Good job, bro, that was a good try. Manhood matters and we're out, let's go baby. Good job, bro, that was a good try.
