According to No Grease Barbershop owner and head administrator Jermaine Johnson, barbers from the popular business — including Marquise Daye — were invited to provide free hair care services to male children in need at Thomasboro Academy on Sept. 25. After registering with the front office, Daye was flagged as a sex offender in the CMS system. It’s illegal for sex offenders to be on campus. He was arrested with a bail set at $30,000.
No Grease owners and barbers have come to Daye’s defense.
“Mr. Marquise Daye has been a model student at our school for 4 months,” Johnson said in a statement. “This situation would be a plunder to our justice system and Mr. Marquise Daye, if all of the facts surrounding why he was at Thomasboro Academy are not considered.”
The root of the arrest stemmed from legal troubles when Daye was a teenager. At 17, he pleaded no contest to a second-degree murder charge in Virginia. He fatally shot 15-year-old Gregory Grant during an argument. Now 26, Daye was recently released from prison and came to No Grease looking for a fresh start. However, his past caught up with him. In Virginia, you’re labeled a sex offender if the murder victim is a minor.
In a sign of solidarity against the CMS incident, No Grease barbers showed up for Daye’s court appearance. They’re not challenging the police procedures. Rather, they felt the situation could’ve been handled better.
“We are simply saying that the facts surrounding this particular incident, will reflect that our intentions were to service the underprivileged students of CMS as we have done for over 21 years and NOT to violate any statutes of CMS or laws governing North Carolina nor to put Mr. Marquise Daye in any violation or harms way of his freedom.”
