Swat teams raid Your Black Muslim Bakery Aug. 3, 2007 (Laura A. Oda/Oakland Tribune)

Swat teams raid Your Black Muslim Bakery Aug. 3, 2007 (Laura A. Oda/Oakland Tribune)

By Harry Harris, Chauncey Bailey Project

OAKLAND — The shuttered Your Black Muslim Bakery was searched for several hours Wednesday by police homicide investigators and criminalists. But police would not say which cases the search was related to, what prompted the search or what they were seeking.

“It is too early to say anything,” said one senior commander, who did not want his name used, citing a department gag order concerning the bakery. “It is too sensitive.”

The bakery has been linked to the Aug. 2 shooting death of Oakland Post Editor Chauncey Bailey and possibly two other killings.

A bakery handyman, Devaughndre Broussard, now 20, was arrested Aug. 3 in connection with the shooting after police raided the bakery, located in the 5800 block of San Pablo Avenue, as well as residences associated with bakery members. The raid was part of an operation planned before Bailey was killed.

The bakery has been closed since then and the property has been offered for sale as part of bankruptcy proceedings involving the bakery. Realtors showing the site to potential buyers have visited the property in the past weeks, but it is unknown whether they were in parts searched by police.

Police said Broussard confessed the night he was arrested to shooting Bailey with a shotgun police recovered earlier that day; he has since recanted that confession. Police said Broussard told them he was angry with Bailey for stories he had written or was planning to write about the bakery operation.

Police also suspect bakery members were involved in two additional killings, although no one has yet been arrested or charged in those cases.

Those are the July 8 fatal shooting of Odell Roberson Jr., 31, in the 1000 block of 60th Street, and the July 12 killing of Michael J. Wills Jr., 36, in the 6200 block of San Pablo.

Police said the gun used in those shootings was also used to shoot up the car of a reputed romantic rival in a love triangle involving bakery leader Yusuf Bey IV, 21. Bey IV, currently jailed on an unrelated charge, has denied being involved in the shooting or the romance.

Broussard is scheduled for a preliminary examination Nov. 21, where a judge will determine if there is enough evidence for him to stand trial in Bailey’s death. Broussard is being held without bail.

Bey IV and four other bakery associates also are being held without bail after being arrested and charged with the May kidnap-torture of two women from whom police said they were trying to get money.