Police Were Warned About White Supremacist « CBS Denver
A Denver jury convicted Barnum in the 1997 murder of Oumar Dia in downtown Denver. Dia, a 38-year-old bellhop at a downtown hotel, was waiting at a bus stop at 17th and Welton when Barnum and an accomplice, Nathan Thill, approached him and shot him dead.
Thill is serving a life term for the Dia murder.
Barnum later pleaded guilty to a lesser charge and was imprisoned for the Dia case from 2002 until he was released on parole in 2009, according to the Colorado Department of Corrections. But he was arrested again in April 2011 on a drug charge and returned to prison for five months until he was released last November.
Prosecutors said Barnum and Thill attacked Dia due to their racist beliefs. While Thill was thought to be the actual shooter, Barnum was convicted on four counts. Dia had a wife and three children in Africa. The attack also left a woman, Jeannie Van Velkinburgh, paralyzed.
Sources tell CBS4 that while in prison, Barnum was a high ranking member of a violent, white supremacist gang called the “211 gang.” Since his release, Barnum had been contacted at least twice by Denver metro area law enforcement.