’60 Minutes’ airs story on Bailey killing
Show uses interview with suspect in case, who says he was ordered to confess to the crime.
By Thomas Peele, Chauncey Bailey Project
OAKLAND — The CBS News television show “60 Minutes” ran a story on Sunday night about the killing of Oakland Post editor Chauncey Bailey that includes an interview with the 20-year-old man charged with gunning down the veteran journalist on Aug. 2. As he has in the past, accused gunman Devaughndre Broussard denies killing Bailey, 57, and tells interviewer Anderson Cooper that someone else — who Broussard doesn’t name — was the triggerman, according to a CBS statement.
In a confession he later recanted, Broussard said he shot Bailey because the journalist was working on a story about the troubled finances and power struggles at Your Black Muslim Bakery, where Broussard worked as a handyman.
Broussard tells Cooper that he was ordered to confess by his religious leader, Yusuf Ali Bey IV, who ran the bakery. Police did not tape that conversation even though both Broussard and Bey were in custody at the time.
“(Bey) was saying, ‘You got to take this fall.’ He was saying, like, ‘As your commanding officer, you got to follow orders,'” Broussard tells Cooper, according to a portion of the interview CBS News released Friday.
“He was telling me how I was being tested by God. You got to prove your loyalty and what not,” Broussard said. “(Bey said), ‘I’m helping you out. I’m telling you, you are being tested by God,'” according to CBS.
Broussard told Cooper that he won’t name the gunman until his trial. He pleaded not guilty last month. No trial date has been set.
Yusuf Ali Bey IV faces charges in an unrelated kidnapping and torture case with several bakery co-defendants. His half-brother, Joshua Bey, entered a surprise guilty plea in the case earlier this month and agreed to testify against Bey IV and others.
A consortium of local journalism organizations, including the Bay Area News Group, the San Francisco Bay Guardian and New America Media of San Francisco, formed the Chauncey Bailey Project within weeks of Bailey’s death to continue Bailey’s work and investigate the bakery and the sprawling Bey family.
The killing stunned Oakland, where Bailey was a well-known figure. He had worked for the Tribune and also previously ran his own television show. He had been editor of the Post, a weekly that serves the city’s African-American community, for three months.
“60 Minutes” airs at 7 p.m. Sunday on CBS affiliates.
If this is an accurate account of the statement given by this young man, he did not do this crime. He did not kill Chanuncy Bailey.
You are looking at the “Fall Guy”. This kid is innocent.