GREEN LEVEL — A popular teacher in North Carolina has died in what authorities said was an “old Western shootout” with members of a Mexican drug cartel.
The Charlotte Observer reported Wednesday that Barney Dale Harris, 40, taught Spanish and was head coach of the boys’ varsity basketball and track teams at Union Academy Charter School in Monroe. He was found dead April 8 in an Alamance County mobile home that authorities called a drug “stash house.”
Alamance County Sheriff Terry Johnson said that officers found Harris wearing a face cover, gloves and a bulletproof vest. There were also 30 shell casings in and outside of the mobile home, and bullet holes in three other mobile homes, Johnson said.
“The trailer looked like it had been ransacked,” the sheriff said. “They were looking for money or drugs, or both.”
Authorities also said that 1.2 kilos of cocaine, about 2.6 pounds, and about $7,000 in cash were found.
The sheriff said that Harris and his brother-in-law had entered the mobile home waiting for a cartel member to arrive so they could rob him of drugs and money. Johnson said that drug-runner Alonso Beltran Lara had been shot “execution style. ”