A Monroe man was sentenced Friday for illegally possessing a machine gun on the Grambling State University’s campus.
The U.S. Attorney said Tristan Barber, 21, was sentenced to 15 years in prison for possession of a firearm by a convicted felon and ten years to run concurrently for possession of a machine gun, with three years of supervised release.
According to court documents, Barber was found to be in possession of a Glock pistol in a dormitory on GSU’s campus in April 2024.
Officials said “the handgun was loaded and equipped with an extended magazine and a machine gun conversion device (MCD).” MCDs convert semiautomatic firearms to fully automatic, allowing them to fire consecutive shots automatically with one pull of the trigger.
They say Barber was also a convicted felon at the time, and was not legally allowed to possess any firearm.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office says Barber’s gun was analyzed and matched to shell casings that were found at the scene of a shooting in Monroe that had occurred on March 29, 2024, less than three weeks earlier.
Barber is scheduled to appear in Fourth District Court in Monroe Wednesday on four counts of murder and numerous other charges and in Third District Court in Ruston on August 12 on charges from the GSU incident.
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