One of his cousins said that the young man who gunned down two in the parking lot of the Crozet Harris Teeter grocery store on Feb.17 before he was shot and killed by an off-duty federal agent was Justin Barbour "in name and body alone."
His sister agrees with that sentiment, along with the assertion that the 28-year-old was a gentle giant.
"He never met a person that he did not like, someone that he didn’t enjoy," sister Tekaiya Barbour told The Daily Progress.
"He came off as shy," she said, "and he had a demeanor about him that might have made you think that he wasn’t approachable or he wasn’t friendly, but that’s just the absolute opposite."
As the younger sibling in a two-child family primarily raised by their mother, Tekaiya Barbour said she felt protected her brother.
3 lives. 3 stories.In the wake of a shooting outside a Crozet grocery store on Feb. 17, The Daily Progress spoke with the friends and families of the three who died that day, including the gunman. They shared what they’ve learned about life and loss in the aftermath of an unthinkable tragedy. This is the third in a three-part series.
"I remember a time when I was in elementary school and being bullied by a bunch of girls, and he stood up for me and they never ever bothered me again," she said. "He truly made sure people felt included and that they were safe."
A normal childhood included playing basketball at the Greenwood Community Center and baseball in the Peachtree league. And she said he was a well known presence walking his dog in Crozet Park and around his home in the Vue apartment complex, where he lived alone.
"He was kind to everybody," she said.
After graduating from Western Albemarle High School, Barbour attended James Madison University, where he earned a psychology degree in 2020 and showed up, she said, many times on the dean’s list.
"He truly was very intelligent," she said.
After college, Justin Barbour put his psychology degree to work for Gateway Homes, a nonprofit halfway house. While Gateway did not reply to a Daily Progress inquiry, public documents show that Gateway operates 26 residential facilities for people with mental health challenges. The one where Justin Barbour worked is a house near Jarmans Gap Road for people who have been discharged from state mental hospitals.
"Here," Gateway asserts on its website, "individuals are assisted in their continuing recovery by gaining their independence and developing skills to live in the community."
As it would turn out, Barbour himself might have eventually have made a strong candidate for such services.
A member of the ACAC fitness center noted several concerning interactions with Justin Barbour.
"Why are you here?" Justin Barbour allegedly asked the person, who spoke with The Daily Progress on condition of anonymity. "They sent you to watch me, didn’t they?"
The source said that Barbour made those comments slightly more than a year ago and said that he seemed so fixated on one particular female physical therapist at ACAC that a male staffer attempted to intervene.
"Why is he watching me?" Justin Barbour allegedly exclaimed. "I am not a pedophile."
Around this time, Barbour’s sister said, the family too began to notice a change — and not just the weight he lost or the muscles he added from exercise.
"He thought people were following him, that they were tracking his phone," she said. "He’d see a specific vehicle, and he’d think that it was after him."
In December, knowing he possessed guns and feeling that his symptoms were worsening, the family visited authorities to push for an emergency commitment order.
"They just straight up told us that this is not enough evidence," his sister said, "that there’s really nothing that we can do unless it comes to a point where he hurts himself or he hurts someone else."
Albemarle County Police Chief Sean Reeves has said there was insufficient evidence for a commitment and contended that even a "red-flag" order to take away the guns was impossible.
"There was no indication or evidence of violence, threats or self-harm reported to police, which are the standard threshold," said Reeves. "This is a legal process requiring evidence of a credible threat."
Since her brother’s death, Tekaiya Barbour said she’s been grateful for the condolences her family has received given the circumstances and given how much easier it has been for others to make accusations or derogatory comments about her brother.
She said she also learned that he got fired from his job in January after making accusations about being followed and harassed. January was also when, police revealed, they went to his residence with Albemarle County’s multipronged team of police and mental health professionals.
His sister said she later learned that her brother stormed into the leasing office after concluding that some traffic cones placed in the apartment complex were somehow directed at him. The county team, dubbed the Human Services Alternative Response Team, or HART, once again concluded that there was insufficient evidence to commit or disarm Justin Barbour.
And that saddens his sister.
"It hurts me, and it kills me," she said, "that the system failed so badly to the point that there are now three families suffering and three people that are no longer here."
Source: www.dailyprogress.com