A Monroe man has been sentenced for illegal possession of a machine gun and for being a felon in possession of a firearm, following an incident on the campus of Grambling State University. Tristan Barber, 21, received a 180-month prison sentence for possessing a firearm as a convicted felon and 120 months to run concurrently for possessing a machine gun. After his release, he will be under supervised release for three years.
Authorities stated that on April 16, 2024, Barber was found with a loaded Glock handgun inside a student dormitory at Grambling State University in Grambling, Louisiana. The firearm had an extended magazine and was fitted with a machine gun conversion device (MCD), which allows semiautomatic weapons to fire continuously with one trigger pull. At the time of this incident, Barber was not legally permitted to have any firearms due to his prior felony conviction.
Further investigation determined that the same machine gun had been used in a shooting in Monroe less than three weeks earlier, as it matched spent shell casings recovered from that scene.
The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), Monroe Police Department, and Lincoln Parish Sheriff’s Office conducted the investigation. The prosecution team included Assistant U.S. Attorney J. Aaron Crawford and Special Assistant U.S. Attorney Catherine Semmes from the United States Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Louisiana, along with Trial Attorney Christopher Usher from the Justice Department’s Criminal Division.
"Acting United States Attorney Alexander C. Van Hook and Matthew R. Galeotti, Head of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division, announced that a Monroe, Louisiana, man was sentenced today for illegally possessing a machine gun and being a felon in possession of a firearm," according to officials.
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