chauncey-bailey

Indictments came down on Wednesday in the murder of Oakland Post editor Chauncey Bailey, who was shot on an Oakland, Calif., street in August 2007. An Alameda County grand jury indicted the leader of the now-closed Your Black Muslim Bakery, Yusuf Bey, on charges that he ordered Bailey killed. 

The murderers of journalists around the globe presume they won't get caught. Unfortunately, they're often right: Only one case in 10 results in any convictions; just one in 20 results in convictions of those who ordered the murder. For more than a year it seemed like the August 2007 slaying of U.S. journalist Chauncey Bailey, left, might not result in the prosecution of all those involved, including the suspected mastermind. Now, however, due largely to the persistence of Bailey's Bay Area colleagues, an indictment of suspects, including the alleged mastermind, may come soon.

The Chauncey Bailey Project is shaking up California authorities from Oakland to Sacramento, after alleging misconduct by police--including mishandling or withholding evidence by the chief detective investigating their colleague's murder. Evidence recently published by the project, a rare, ad hoc consortium of committed journalists, has led the Alameda district attorney to open an independent oversight investigation, and the Oakland mayor to demand a separate, state investigation of the Bailey murder case.

New York, November 4, 2008--The Committee to Protect Journalists welcomes the decision by California authorities to undertake additional investigations into the August 2007 murder of U.S. editor Chauncey Bailey.

Editor Chauncey Bailey was gunned down three blocks from his Oakland, Calif., office in August, becoming the first U.S. journalist killed for his work in six years. Bailey, editor-in-chief of the Oakland Post and four other weeklies focusing on the San Francisco Bay Area's African-American communities, was targeted after investigating the alleged criminal activities of a local business, Your Black Muslim Bakery. One suspect, bakery worker Devaughndre Broussard, was arrested. He reportedly confessed to killing Bailey with a sawed-off shotgun, although his lawyer said the statement was made under duress. Journalists across the country later formed an ad hoc group to investigate the crime, the first on-duty killing since the 2001 deaths of one journalist in the terrorist attack on New York's World Trade Center and another in a Florida anthrax attack.

JANUARY 2008
Posted February 15, 2008

Paul Cobb, Post Newspaper Group
THREATENED

Post Newspaper Group publisher Paul Cobb reported to Oakland Police a planned attempt on his life, according to a report by The Chauncey Bailey Project in the Contra Costa Times and other Bay area newspapers. Cobb, publisher of the Oakland Post and other local weeklies focusing on the San Francisco Bay Area’s black communities, told police that two men associated with the defunct Your Black Muslim Bakery had offered a third man, a former employee of the bakery, money to set up Cobb to be killed. Cobb said he knew the man who, instead of accepting the money, informed Cobb of the murder plot.

Journalist Deaths Hit Decade Peak
Half in Iraq; record number in Somalia

Justice is served in less than 15 percent of journalist murders. Our research suggests that the absence of justice promotes a higher incidence of murder. "Impunity," one Russian lawyer tells CPJ, "is a chronic disease."

September 2007
News from the Committee to Protect Journalists