Chauncey Bailey, an American journalist and the editor-in-chief of The Oakland Post, was assassinated on a downtown Oakland street on August 2, 2007. He was the victim of a crime syndicate. Bailey's death outraged fellow journalists, who joined together to create the Chauncey Bailey Project dedicated to continuing his work and uncovering the facts of his murder.
In June 2011, Yusuf Bey IV, the owner of Your Black Muslim Bakery (YBMB), was convicted of ordering Bailey's murder, along with other charges, and sentenced to three life terms in prison. An associate of Bey's, Antoine Mackey, who also worked for YBMB and previously participated in various criminal activities with other Bakery members, was also convicted for participating in Bailey's murder. A third man, bakery handyman Devaughndre Broussard, had earlier confessed to being the triggerman. Bailey was the first American journalist killed for domestic reporting since 1976.
Circumstances Chauncey Bailey had been working on a story about the finances of Your Black Muslim Bakery (YBMB), which was on the verge of bankruptcy. Oakland Post publisher Paul Cobb later revealed that, prior to Bailey's killing, Cobb had withheld a story that Bailey had written earlier from publication, saying only that it was about "things like" what happened to Bailey. Cobb later stated that the police had asked him not to reveal anything about the matter. A former YBMB employee, Ali Saleem Bey who is not a relative of the bakery's owner, but who adopted the Bey name revealed that he was Bailey's source for the withheld story, which the Post had decided was not ready for publication. Bailey had asked Ali Bey to give him information for the story.
According to Ali Bey, YBMB had been seized from its rightful heirs in a coup, through fraud and forgery, by a younger branch of the Bey family, including Antar Bey and Yusuf Bey IV, the bakery's CEO. In June 2005, John Bey, the former head of the Bey security service who had tried to expose the fraud behind the YBMB coup, fled Oakland with his family after an attempt on his life in a shooting outside his home. In 2005, Antar mortgaged the YBMB property to cover back taxes and other debt, and then defaulted, which led to threat of foreclosure. An attorney for the Post confirmed that Bailey had been working on the story about the "financial status of the organization" and including the possibly criminal "activities of a number of people who were working in the organization".
On October 24, 2006, YBMB filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. With $900,000 in debts, owed mostly to the mortgage holder, the bakery building was about to be foreclosed upon. The remaining debt, $200,000, was owed to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). The day after Bailey's death, on August 3, 2007, Judge Edward Jellen ordered the case to be converted to Chapter 7 liquidation effective August 9.
Final days By the summer of 2007, Bailey was living in an apartment near the south end of Lake Merritt, not far from Downtown Oakland. His regular morning routine involved walking to work along 14th Street, which included a stop to eat breakfast at a McDonald's restaurant at corner of Jackson Street.
On the morning of August 2, Bailey was being followed by a white Ford Aerostar van carrying Devaughndre Broussard, a 19-year-old YBMB employee who was on probation for a San Francisco robbery conviction, and driven by Antoine Mackey, a 21-year-old YBMB employee who was on probation for selling cocaine. Broussard had worked at the bakery as a handyman and cook between August 2006 and March 2007, before leaving to find other work. He was rehired at the bakery in July 2007. Mackey had only been working at the bakery since May 2007.
Assassination Broussard spotted Bailey leaving the McDonald's restaurant. After the van was parked on Alice Street, Broussard wearing a ski mask and dark clothing approached Bailey at the 200 block of 14th Street, wielding a Mossberg shotgun. One witness said Bailey said: "Please don't kill me." This witness claimed he recognized Bailey, and that he was in trouble, but stopped in his tracks when he saw the shotgun. Other witnesses said Broussard fired at least three rounds from the shotgun. Broussard's first shot hit Bailey in the chest. He then stood over Bailey and fired again at his face, before finally firing a coup de grâce to make sure he was dead. Broussard then ran back to the waiting van and Mackey drove away. Bailey was pronounced dead at the scene.
Bailey was survived by his father, three of his four siblings, and his teenage son living in southern California. A funeral Mass for Bailey was held at the East Oakland St. Benedict's Catholic Church on the morning of August 8, 2007, with an overflow crowd of 700 in attendance, including a line of people outside for more than an hour into the service. Attendees included Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums, U.S. Representative Barbara Lee, and well-known local attorney John Burris. Bailey was buried at Holy Sepulchre Cemetery in nearby Hayward.
Suspects
Shooter Devaughndre Broussard grew up in San Francisco's Western Addition district. In January 2006, at age 18, he pleaded guilty to an assault charge and served a first-time offender sentence of one year in San Francisco County Jail. Upon release, he was further ordered to three years of supervised probation. In addition to being on probation, Broussard was also wanted on an outstanding failure-to-appear warrant related to charges involving a 2006 assault with a firearm in San Francisco.
On the night of August 1, 2007, Broussard first went looking for Bailey at his apartment complex near the south end of Lake Merritt. Early on the next morning of August 2, Broussard looked for Bailey at his office at the Post, but Bailey had not yet arrived. Broussard also went looking for Bailey twice at his apartment complex again that morning. At 7:17 a.m. an AC Transit bus driver reported seeing a man who may have been Broussard standing near Bailey's apartment complex at First Avenue and International Boulevard with a shotgun. The driver called his dispatcher, who reported the incident to the Alameda County Sheriff's Office. The driver continued on his route, and deputies responded to the location, but could not locate the man in their search.
Yusuf Bey IV
Yusuf Bey IV was born in Oakland in 1986. He was the son of Yusuf Bey, the founder of YBMB, and Daulet Bey, one of multiple women who the elder Yusuf took as his wives. His life was marred by arrests and accusations of serious crimes. Yusuf's father was said to have fathered forty-two children by different women at the time of his death in 2003. He had one legal wife, Farieda Bey, but no other formal marriages took place. Bey claimed he had "spiritually" adopted his followers, who all took his surname. People who worked for YBMB were considered "members" of the business and the mosque from which the bakery had grown.
From a young age, Yusuf had run-ins with the law, including at the age of 15 in 2001, when he was arrested in El Cerrito for failing to stop at a stop sign and possessing a loaded firearm magazine.
Battle for control of the bakery After the death of the elder Yusuf, his follower and designated successor, Waajid Aljawwaad (who sometimes used the additional last name of Bey), became the CEO of YBMB. However, on February 27, 2004, Aljawwaad failed to arrive for work at the bakery. His body, bound with electrical tape and wrapped in a tarpaulin, was found in Oakland Hills in July of that year. No one was ever charged with the murder.
Antar Bey, Daulet and Yusuf Bey's son and the older brother of Yusuf Bey IV, seized control of YBMB. In an effort to keep the business afloat, he took out $700,000 in loans, but was then killed in a carjacking in Oakland in October 2005. Authorities suspected Yusuf IV of ordering Antar's execution, but this could never be proven, and eventually Oakland police charged a man unrelated to the bakery with the murder. After Antar's death, Yusuf IV took full control of YBMB.
Bakery ownership years (2005–2007) Yusuf IV seemed primarily interested in YBMB's profits and the power over the members of the business his father had engendered, not the day-to-day operation of the business itself, and the court would later note that "the bakery did not thrive" under his leadership. He alternately took money from YBMB and conducted various fraudulent operations to support himself and the business. This eventually forced the bakery to file for bankruptcy in 2006, though the proceedings dragged on until Bey was arrested in 2007.
Yusuf IV continued his father's practice of delivering fiery Black Muslim sermons to bakery followers, including one videotaped sermon from July 2007, where he asserted, "We fight the government, we fight the police, we fight our own families, we fight our own people, and we fight Caucasian people daily—just to do right."
Some of the crimes Bey IV committed during this period included theft by deception and forgery involving the purchase of several cars; fraudulent sub-prime home loan applications; possession of a firearm after attempting to open a checking account using forged identification; and a bizarre kidnapping and assault on a woman Yusuf IV believed was connected with drug dealers who owed him money, or whom he could rob. Despite several arrests, he remained free and flouted subpoenas and court dates. His lawyer said at the time, "The view was, 'We're Black Muslims, we can do anything we want.' They got sucked in. I thought it was 'acting out' behavior. But it caused just a whirlwind of trouble."
Criminal record Some of Yusuf Bey IV's charges and arrests include:
In November 2005, Yusuf IV was charged with grand theft for fraud connected with the purchase of a 2002 Mercedes from a Vallejo car dealership. He used a stolen identity to buy the car and pleaded no contest when the crime was discovered. A Solano County judge allowed him to remain free. That same month, a group of men in suits, presumably led by Yusuf IV, stormed two Muslim-owned stores that sold liquor. The men destroyed wine in cases and groceries. He later claimed, "If you say you're a Muslim, you should have the action of a Muslim," and that alcohol was "killing our people". During one of these incidents, Bey also stole the Mossburg shotgun that would later be used in Bailey's murder. In 2006, Yusuf IV was charged with assault with a deadly weapon after he tried to run over the bouncer of a San Francisco strip club from which he'd been ejected. In June 2006, Yusuf IV purchased a home in Oakland using falsified information. The sub-prime loan involved a first and second mortgage, and investigators later theorized the motive was to obtain money from the home's equity. The loan went into default in October. Yusuf IV used his own Social Security number but a driver's license with a falsified name for the loan paperwork. Later, investigators discovered that he and his associates had purchased a total of five homes, most of which were in default. That same month, Yusuf IV and associates used false information to buy three cars from a San Bruno dealership, which later resulted in charges of grand theft. Yusuf IV used the same name to purchase the cars that he had used to purchase the house in Oakland. One of the accomplices later said he could not remember using a false name or several other details of the fraudulent car purchase or the liquor store vandalism, in which he also allegedly participated.