After FOX5 first broke the story last night, reports popped up all over today about how former mayor and Ward 8 Council member Marion Barry was the victim of a burglary at his home about a month ago, while he was traveling for a few days in China. That he was there addressing an association of Chinese mayors is humorous (presumably it was some sort of Scared Straight program), but that’s not what’s makes this latest episode interesting. Rather, it’s the odd remarks from his spokesperson about Barry’s reaction to the crime and his apparent reluctance to cooperate with a police investigation.

Barry has so far not commented on the crime directly, which reportedly resulted in the loss of some jewelry and watches of undetermined value. Instead, he dispatched spokesperson Andre Johnson to make the following statement:

[Barry] feels that the police are using this as a distraction instead of focusing on the murders that have been committed [recently in Ward 8 and elsewhere]. He feels it’s sad that he is being brought into this when so many unsolved murders are being committed. His concern is really more with trying to solve some of the unsolved homicides.

Saying the police shouldn’t try to track down a thief because there are murderers on the loose is like saying Congress shouldn’t bother addressing health care while there’s a war going on. What is he being “brought into,” exactly? Why do you have be so weird about it, Councilman?

It looks like there was no forced entry, which could mean Barry knows, or thinks he knows, who took his property from his home in far Southeast Washington. Barry was robbed at gunpoint in another strange incident in early 2006, by two youths who he said offered to help him carry his groceries into his house.

Whatever the reality of this latest burglary, yet another crime story related to Marion Barry is just a little bit more strange than it needs to be.