Editor’s Note

The stories for this series about the Aug. 2, 2007 killing of Oakland Post editor Chauncey Bailey are based largely on law-enforcement documents, recordings of police interviews, jailhouse phone calls and thousands of subpoenaed cell phone records that were obtained by the Chauncey Bailey Project.

All relate to the central question about Bailey’s killing: Why, more that 14 months later, has only one person, Devaughndre Broussard, been charged in this slaying?

In addition to the records and other documents, these stories rely on people who talked with reporters but who are not identified by name. We would have preferred not to have used anonymous sources, but these stories — about a flawed homicide investigation – required information from insiders whose jobs, and in some cases safety, might have been compromised.

After much consideration about the critical nature of these stories, the project’s editors and reporters agreed. In these instances where anonymity was granted, the project required at least two sources before it could be published.

Kevin G. Keane Executive Editor Bay Area News Group – East Bay

Robert J. Rosenthal Executive Editor The Chauncey Bailey Project