The two men spoke until late in the evening

Source: Ryan Hedrick / WIBC Radio

INDIANPOLY — The two men talked late into the night about how they turned hard times into opportunities. Both took on adult responsibilities at a young age and used their pain to help the community they once troubled. They were optimistic, but this would be their last conversation.

The next day, Ron Gee, who had founded an organization called Cease Fire, was shot dead in the middle of the day on the east side of town.

“Little did I know that the next day I would get a phone call that they had robbed me of a comrade, a brother, a friend,” said Antonio Patton, who founded MOVE (Men Of Vision Empower). “Evil is always lurking, and evil always wants to attack when good is there.”

On Saturday, Gee was scheduled to attend a Barbershop Talk event, part of Patton’s multi-speaker “Community Invasion” series. Instead, his three children, ages 18, 19 and 20, attended the event.

“I got the news that my dad was missing and they found his car. I live in Lafayette so I jumped in the car and drove out here. I was about five minutes from the scene and someone texted me saying ‘sorry for your loss,'” said 18-year-old Renee Frieson.

Ronald Jr. said that aside from the pain of losing his father, his first thought was to continue his father’s work and ensure that his legacy would live on through him.

“It’s not an easy process,” he said. “It’s going to be hard, but my support group, my community, the people who loved him, are going to help me through it.”

Gee’s 20-year-old daughter, Asharia Frieson, urged people to think about their actions before using weapons to resolve conflicts.

“You have to come to terms with yourself,” she said. “If you wake up one day and think, I’m going to kill someone today, you must be a sick person. I feel like everyone in this generation thinks it’s such a flex to carry guns, but it’s not.”