Aug 4, 2007 3:07 pm US/Pacific
Oakland Bakery Worker Said To Admit Killing Bailey
SAN FRANCISCO (CBS) ―
The Oakland Tribune reported that a 19-year-old handyman at Your Black Muslim Bakery, a bakery chain raided by police on Friday, admitted to authorities that he ambushed and fatally shot the Oakland Post editor.
Officials identified the suspect to the paper as Devaughhndre Broussard, reports CBS station KPIX-TV in San Francisco.
According to police accounts, Broussard said he was angry at Bailey over stories he had written and planned to write about the controversial Black Muslim group.
Bailey, 57, recently named editor of the Post and a former longtime reporter for the Tribune, had written stories for the Tribune about the bakery and its founder's past legal troubles. Post Publisher Paul Cobb, and other colleagues at the weekly newspaper geared toward the Bay Area black community, said Bailey was also researching a new investigative piece about the bakery's finances.
Police said they arrested Broussard at his home Friday during a series of early morning raids that included the bakery's headquarters, located at 5832 San Pablo Ave. in north Oakland, as well three houses in the city.
Police had publicly disclosed Friday that "firearm evidence" confiscated during the four raids was connected to the slaying of the veteran journalist. The pre-dawn raids were part of a broader, yearlong investigation involving "murder, robbery and kidnapping," said Oakland Assistant Police Chief Howard Jordan.
Seven people were arrested, including Broussard. Also under arrest was Yusuf Bey IV - the son of the bakery's founder. All were being held on charges including suspicion of homicide, robbery and assault.
Alameda County Assistant District Attorney Tom Rogers said the earliest anyone would be arraigned in court would be Monday afternoon. Meantime, two other suspects connected with the bakery were still being sought by authorities.
Homicide detective Lt. Ersie Joyner told reporters at a Friday afternoon briefing that "scientific evidence" had linked guns seized in the raids to the brazen daytime shooting death a day earlier of journalist Bailey near his 14th Street office.
Bailey was walking to work Thursday morning when he was slain and police had believed from the start it was likely a targeted shooting because the suspects seemed to know Bailey's routine and they didn't rob him - as Bailey's wallet was found in his pants pocket.
"The search warrant yielded several weapons and other evidence of value including evidence linking the murder of Chauncey Bailey to members of the Your Black Muslim Bakery," Jordan said.
"We're talking about firearm-related evidence. At this point we're talking about calibers of firearms, things of that nature, but I can say there is scientific evidence that links the firearms to murder of Chauncey Bailey," Jordan explained. "We have multiple firearms that were found, some of those firearms are believed to be the firearms that killed Mr. Bailey."
Police would not give specific details about other cases they believe are linked to bakery members, but said all the crimes were committed earlier this year. Investigators said it began with a kidnapping and torture incident on May 19 and was followed by two murders in July.
Police also said Friday's raids were already planned before Bailey was shot multiple times and killed on Thursday.
"During our investigation, Chauncey Bailey was murdered and it turns out evidence in that case also links to the same individuals we were looking at in the other two prior murders to that case," Lt. Joyner said.
High-ranking police officials were at the bakery to oversee Friday morning's raid operation, marked by blasts which rang out from inside the bakery and up to 250 S.W.A.T. team members armed with rifles.
The raid began just before 5 a.m., when three rental trucks and a dump truck pulled up in front of the bakery, said Dennis Monaghan, a security officer at Siddha Yoga Meditation Ashram, located at the corner of San Pablo and Stanford avenues, just doors down from the bakery.
The trucks were filled with officers holding rifles and gear, he said. The trucks were followed by S.W.A.T. vehicles and patrol cars and then the S.W.A.T. officers assembled in front of the bakery.
"And then you heard go, go, go," Monaghan said. Then there were 15 or so blasts. During the raid, one of the upper windows of the bakery blew out, he said.
The S.W.A.T. team was inside for about an hour, said Monaghan, who added, "I haven't seen such action since Vietnam."
A two-block section of San Pablo Avenue around the bakery was surrounded with police tape and officers were parked in front of the business all morning. City workers could be seen later in the morning boarding up the front windows of the bakery.
The county health department had ordered the bakery closed as of Friday afternoon due to various health code violations, police said.
The late Yusuf Bey founded Your Black Muslim Bakery in 1968 as a haven for struggling urban families. It sells natural baked goods alongside books by Malcolm X and other black leaders and is famed for its bean and carrot pies.
Bey's reputation later took a hit as he defended himself against rape allegations in Alameda County. Most of those charges were later dropped, and one was pending when he died of cancer in 2003.
Bey's 21-year old son, Yusuf Bey IV, then took control of the original bakery and several franchises.
In November 2005, Bey IV was accused by police of being the ringleader in a group of black Muslims from the bakery who smashed liquor bottles in Oakland corner stores and berated the Muslim owners for selling alcohol to the black community, because alcohol is forbidden by Islam.
In 2006, Bey IV was charged with assault with a deadly weapon for allegedly trying to use his BMW to run down several bouncers after being thrown out of a San Francisco strip club. He also faced felony charges in Solano County for allegedly fraudulently using false identification to buy a car.
In addition, Lt. Joyner said there had been many violent incidents connected to the bakery since the elder Bey's death. The incidents appeared to be over financial struggles and power struggles involving the bakery, he said, and many of those crimes are still unsolved.
Your Black Muslim bakery was plagued with financial problems for several years, culminating in a bankruptcy filing last October.
In a declaration filed with the bankruptcy court on June 29, Bey IV conceded he was "inexperienced in the business world," and had "received advice and consultation from those who had proven to me they did not have my best interests at heart."
According to Joseph Debro, an Oakland businessman who writes a column for the Post, Bailey had recently asked him for information about bankruptcy proceedings for a story about the bakery.
"To him it was just another story," Debro said. "He wasn't apprehensive or anxious about it at all. He said he was working on a bunch of stories and this was one."
Don Bolles, a reporter for the Arizona Republic newspaper, was the last reporter killed in the line of duty in the United States. He was killed by a car bomb in 1976 while reporting on organized crime.
(© 2007 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)
