The man accused of the racially motivated murder of his roommate in a Berkeley shelter got into tense arguments with other Black shelter residents and threatened to shoot them before the 2024 killing, according to another roommate who witnessed it.
Mark Christopher Dowling, 63, was held to answer on a charge of murdering 37-year-old Marcel Dupree Jones, as well as a special allegation that the murder was a hate crime, following a preliminary hearing Thursday. Testimony from Dowling and Jones’ fellow shelter residents offered new insight into what had happened between the two men in the days leading up to the Aug. 25, 2024, killing. Dowling has pleaded not guilty to the charge.
Antoine Rufus, who witnessed the shooting, remembered Jones as a “funny, bright, kind of optimistic dude.”…