Carolina Gang Member From Past "Ethnic Intimidation" Crime - Later Murdered In A Street Pirate Home Invasion

Just to relieve any notion of truth to the allegation that some of you have advanced that it is "My hatred of  Black people and myself" that have me motivated to slander my own people -  I am going to give you some context to how I came about this story.  To not report these connected facts would mean that I am attempting to spike the truth for the protection of someone who ultimately did not deserve it.

I am currently visiting my family members in North and South Carolina.   On the local Charlotte news channel "WSOC" I learned about the death of a Street Pirate who broke into a home, intended to perform a "home invasion" in Salisbury North Carolina.  The home owner wrestled the gun from Marlon Barber and shot him dead.  (File this under: "Don't Start None, Won't Be None)

As I went to my computer to look up the crime in order to get more context I typed in the following into Google:  "Salisbury NC Marlon Barber".

The results came back with the news that the late Marlon Barber is a gang member who was previously charged with "Ethnic Intimidation".

• Feb 19, 2012 - NC Man Takes Gun From Robber, Kills Him
• Salisbury Post: Gang member charged with assault, ethnic intimidation

The picture on the television and in the newspaper are identical except that the late Marlon Barber has allowed his hair to grow longer at the time of his death.

From The Salisbury Post

A Salisbury teen with a known gang affiliation is in jail today after police say he and a group of other teens beat up a man walking through their neighborhood just because he is white.
And police are investigating a similar but unrelated gang-related assault in another Salisbury neighborhood.
Marlon Jermaine "Murda" Barber, 19, of 833 E. Lafayette St., was charged Thursday with assault with a deadly weapon inflicting serious injury and ethnic intimidation.
Salisbury Police Chief Deputy Steve Whitley said the attack occurred Sunday night. The Post is not identifying the victim because other suspects remain free and because of the nature of the crime.

The man was walking in the 300 block of Lafayette, on the east side of town, around 10 p.m. Sunday when a group of teenagers approached him, Whitley said.
The teens, who were black, asked the man, who is white, what he was doing in that neighborhood. The man, who has lived in the east Salisbury neighborhood for years, exchanged words, including racial slurs, with the teens, and the teens then beat him. The victim said one of the teens pistol whipped him.
The victim was treated at Rowan Regional Medical Center and released.
On Wednesday afternoon, around 3, a Hispanic man was robbed while heading to a bus stop on West Horah Street. Whitley said a group of teens began threatening the man, questioning why a person of his race was in their neighborhood, and then robbed the man. The teens, who were black, may be part of a gang, Whitley said.
The victim in the second incident was not hurt. He also has lived in the neighborhood for years, Whitley said.
No arrests have been made in the Wednesday incident.

(Editorial note:  I wish that laws against racial intimidation were being enforced when I was growing up in West Philly.  At the time 63rd Street was the dividing line.  If Blacks walked across that line the 'White boys' all converged together to keep us out and vice versa if they walked the other way.  Today when I go home and see that the entire area is now Black I can't help but to think "You all had better watch out.  Those Italians are going to throw rocks at you, standing on the corner".  )

To tie this into a larger issue:  A few weeks ago I had an article out of New Orleans in which a local family was upset that their loved one who was killed in a crime has his criminal records released when it was not relevant to the issue at hand.   See here:

• New Orleans policy of releasing criminal records for murder victims called insensitive
• New Orleans police reverse policy of releasing victim arrest records amid mounting criticism
• Good Samaritan's past puts NOPD policy to the test

My own "journalistic standards" were tested a few weeks ago as I received an angry post from the family of a recent murder victim in Savannah GA.   I had made a typo in a report of a "Street Pirate" killing where I mislabeled the victim, Dustin Graham , as Black.  He was a young White male.  

As I did the research to vet the claims from a person representing himself as a family member I learned that Dustin Graham had a criminal record and was recently released from jail prior to his murder.  I chose not to publish this in the context of apologizing for my previous typo.

While Dustin Graham's criminal past was not relevant to the unjustified murder that he suffered, though it could have explained why he was in the proximity of shady characters,  Marlon Barber initiated the home invasion that ultimately lead to his own demise.  The publication of his criminal and "Street Pirate Gang past" shows the continuity of certain behavior that lead to his end.