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Jun 24, 2008 6:47 pm US/Central
A Look Inside An Impoverished Dallas Neighborhood
Raw Interviews With Suspects Linked At Bottom Of This Story
GARLAND (CBS 11 News) ―
The teenagers who confessed to killing two men in Garland last weekend were last seen in a Dallas neighborhood before being caught in Texarkana.
The accused murderers lived two blocks away in an environment plagued by poverty, drugs and crime. Newly built public housing units stand as a symbol of progress in the neighborhood.
"I done sold dope all my life. I'm 38-years-old. I don't do none of that no more. All my bad behavior is behind me. It's not a bad behavior. It's called surviving. Because If I didn't have a job, yes I probably would be selling dope," said one woman who lives in the neighborhood.
They call it the Junction. The neighborhood is littered with restlessness and joblessness.
Many people in the neighborhood know all about James Broadnax and Demarius Cummings. Some of the people who live in the neighborhood with them also equate robbing with surviving, gangs as family and drugs as income.
"If I don't know nobody but drug dealers, and thems my only people I can go to, then that's the only people I can go to," said a man who lives in the neighborhood.
Omar Jahwar works to get young people out of this environment. He said the crimes were "irrational and harsh. That deserves harsh consequences. That's no good. That's not the norm. The norm is sustained pain. That's the norm. The norm is, 'Today I ain't got nothin' to eat. Man, I'm sick of this man!' That's the norm."
The people who live in those units say there are no excuses for what the two men did, but they wanted to give some insight into what they are dealing with on a daily basis.
Editor's Note:
Each man's interview is around 15 minutes in length. WARNING: They are heavily laced with profanity and graphic descriptions of the murders. We have posted them here because we believe we can tell this story more thoroughly by presenting the perspectives of the accused.
If you would like to watch the interviews in their entirety, click here.
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