UC Riverside English professor Lindon Barrett was found dead in his Long Beach apartment on Sunday, and an acquaintance has been arrested for his murder.

According to the Long Beach Police Department, neighbors in the 100 block of West 5th Street in Long Beach reported a foul odor coming from one of the apartments, where police discovered Barrett’s body.

Barrett appeared to have been dead for several days, and an initial investigation suggested foul play.

His car was located near Paramount Boulevard and South Street, and policed arrested 20-year-old Marlon Martinez when he returned to the vehicle. Martinez was arrested for murder and is being held on $1 million bail.

According to a UCR press release, Barrett, 46, joined the faculty last fall. He had also taught at UC Irvine and served as a consultant to Steven Spielberg and Debbie Allen on 1997’s “Amistad.” Barrett, the author of “Blackness and Value: Seeing Double,” was working on his second book, “Racial Blackness and the Discontinuity of Western Modernity.”

UCR English department chair Katherine Kinney first met Barrett when they attended graduate school at the University of Pennsylvania. “Lindon offered so much, personally and professionally, to the department, the campus and the scholarly field of African-American studies,” Kinney said in the release. “He will be missed by friends and colleagues across campus and across the country.”

The school will hold a memorial service for Barrett in the fall.

Anyone with additional information about his death is asked to call detectives Terri Hubert and Russ Moss at (562) 570-7244.

– posted at 1:15 p.m. by Cathy Maestri

Tuesday, July 15, 2008