Chauncey Bailey Project

Audio

Yusuf Bey IV and Sgt. Derwin Longmire

September 4, 2009 – More communication between jailed Yusuf Bey IV and homicide detective Sgt. Derwin Longmire have been discovered. Among them:

Bey IV says Longmire “made sure the murder had nothing to do with me.”

Bey IV’s common-law wife, Alaia Bey, passes on a message that his sister, Jannah Bey, spoke with Longmire.

Bey IV tells Alaia Bey to call Longmire to help protect Your Black Muslim Bakery.

Bey IV calls Longmire from jail in February 2008.

(read more)

Yusuf Bey IV's common-law wife, Alaia Bey, his sister, Jannah Bey, his mother, Daulet Bey, left to right.
Yusuf Bey IV's common-law wife, Alaia Bey, his sister, Jannah Bey, his mother, Daulet Bey, left to right.

Yusuf Bey IV's sister Jannah Bey
Yusuf Bey IV's sister Jannah Bey
Yusuf Bey IV
Yusuf Bey IV
Sgt. Derwin Longmire
Sgt. Derwin Longmire

Bey IV tried to strong-arm follower

August 25, 2009 – In January 2008, five months after he was arrested, Yusuf Bey IV talks to Kahlil Raheem by telephone to try to convince him not to cooperate with the prosecutors’ investigation of a kidnapping and torture case.

Yusuf Bey IV talks with Kahil Raheem in January 2008 about Raheem’s cooperation with prosecutors.

(read more)

Yusuf Bey IV, center, and Kahlil Raheem, right, in court.
Yusuf Bey IV, center, and Kahlil Raheem, right, in court.

Path to Indictment

April 30, 2009 – An Alameda County criminal grand jury has indicted the former head of Your Black Muslim Bakery on three murder charges, including the August 2, 2007 killing of Oakland Post editor Chauncey Bailey. Reporter Bob Butler airs comments made by then-Senator Barack Obama about Bailey’s death and takes a look at all the facts uncovered by the Chauncey Bailey Project that finally led to the indictments.(read more)

Senator Barack Obama remembers Chauncey Bailey at the National Association of Black Journalists annual convention Aug. 8-12, 2007, in Las Vegas.
Senator Barack Obama remembers Chauncey Bailey at the National Association of Black Journalists annual convention Aug. 8-12, 2007, in Las Vegas.

Bey IV calls Sgt. Longmire from jail

March 7, 2009 – On June 28, 2008, and August 10, 2008, Yusuf Bey IV had his common law wife call Detective Sgt. Derwin Longmire and patch Bey IV through from the Santa Rita Jail. Longmire tells Bey IV he doesn’t “worry one ounce” that their relationship is under scrutiny. (read more)


Oakland Police Sgt. Derwin Longmire. Nader Khouri/Contra Costa Times
Oakland Police Sgt. Derwin Longmire. Nader Khouri/Contra Costa Times

Delayed raid may have cost Bailey his life

December 16, 2008 – The executive command staff of Oakland Police Department put off the 2007 raid on Your Black Muslim Bakery for 48 hours because two senior SWAT commanders were backpacking. Members of the command staff deny there was a delay and said the raid was always scheduled for Friday, August 3rd to give the SWAT teams time to prepare. But the Chauncey Bailey Project has talked to numerous officers who were at the bakery that day and other sources and they all say the raid was supposed to take place August 1st… and the delay likely cost Chauncey Bailey his life. (read more)

A task force led by the Oakland Police Department raided Your Black Muslim Bakery a day after Chauncey Bailey was shot dead.
A task force led by the Oakland Police Department raided Your Black Muslim Bakery a day after Chauncey Bailey was shot dead.

Chauncey Bailey Project on KGO Radio

July 9, 2008 – Executive Editor Robert J. Rosenthal, independent journalist Bob Butler and Oakland Tribune Editor Martin Reynolds discuss the latest news of the Chauncey Bailey Project on the Ronn Owens Program on KGO-AM 810. The three talk about the secret police video recently released by the project and about the project’s significance to journalism and to Oakland with Gill Gross, longtime news host standing in for the vacationing Owens. (read more)


Yusuf Bey IV discusses the murder of Chauncey Bailey in a secretly recorded police video from Aug. 6. (Oakland Police Video)
Yusuf Bey IV discusses the murder of Chauncey Bailey in a secretly recorded police video from Aug. 6. (Oakland Police Video)

Chauncey Bailey Project reporter Bob Butler reports on the investigation.

June 18, 2008 – A secretly recorded video raises questions about who is responsible for Chauncey Bailey’s murder. (read more)

Oakland Police Sgt. Derwin Longmire. (Nader Khouri/Contra Costa Times)
Oakland Police Sgt. Derwin Longmire. (Nader Khouri/Contra Costa Times)

Bob Butler reports on the 22-year-old murder case.

April 9, 2008 – The Chauncey Bailey Project uncovers a link between the murder of Peter August Kaufman in June 1986 and Yusuf Ali Bey, the late founder of Your Black Muslim Bakery, where Kaufman worked. (read more)

Muslims pray in the kitchen at Your Black Muslim Bakery in 2000. (Nancy Pastor, Oakland Tribune).
Muslims pray in the kitchen at Your Black Muslim Bakery in 2000. (Nancy Pastor, Oakland Tribune).

Police reopen 1968 slaying investigation

March 25, 2008 – An investigation by the Chauncey Bailey Project has prompted Police in Santa Barbara to reopen an investigation into the unsolved 1968 shooting deaths of a couple affiliated with a mosque that was the forerunner to Oakland’s Your Black Muslim Bakery. Detectives could arrive in the East Bay from Southern California as early as this week to talk to Abdul Raab Mohammad, who, at the time of the double murder, was known as Billy Stephens when he was minister of the mosque in Santa Barbara. Reporter Bob Butler takes a look at the case, then and now. (read more)

Birdie Mae Scott
Birdie Mae Scott

Police: Chauncey Bailey murder similar to 40-year-old slaying

March 25, 2008 – KQED Public Radio report Judy Campbell explores the discovery by the Chauncey Bailey Project of an unsolved murder that Santa Barbara police say is similar to the Aug. 2 slaying of Oakland Post editor Chauncey Bailey.(read more)

Santa Barbara police Lt. Amando Martel
Santa Barbara police Lt. Amando Martel

Recording interrogations

Dec. 17, 2007 – In California, police can record their interrogations of
murder suspects, but there is no requirement to do so. That’s cause for
concern among some legal experts who say the recordings protect
suspects — and the public — against coerced confessions. Judy
Campbell reports.(read more)

Oakland Police Lt. Ersie Joyner III
Oakland Police Lt. Ersie Joyner III

A holiday without Chauncey

November 27, 2007 – Bay Area radio journalist Bob Butler interviews Chauncey Bailey’s family in Atlanta as they reflect on spending Thanksgiving 2007 without their slain brother. (read more)

Mark Cooley and Lorelei Waqia
Mark Cooley and Lorelei Waqia

New questions surrounding Chauncey Bailey’s murder investigation

October 11, 2007 – Audio from the KQED-produced newsmagazine
California Report with reporter Scott Shafer. UC Berkeley journalism
professor Neil Henry says Bailey’s death raises a lot of questions
journalists want to answer. (read more)

Neil Henry
Neil Henry

Experts question whether faster police action could have saved Bailey’s life

October 11, 2007 – KQED public broadcasting reporter Judy Campbell explores the police timing of their raid of Your Black Muslim Bakery, which came one day after the shotgun slaying of Oakland Post editor Chauncey Bailey. (read more)

Oakland police talk to media
Oakland police talk to media

Devaughndre Broussard pleads not guilty to
charges that he murdered editor Chauncey Bailey

January 24, 2008 – Devaughndre Broussard’s attorney, LeRue Grim, tells reporters that Yusuf Bey IV, CEO of Your Black Muslim Bakery in Oakland, could have information that would exonerate his client. (read more)

Attorney LeRue Grim
Attorney LeRue Grim

Broker associated with bakery accused of deceit

November 11, 2007 – Bay Area radio journalist Bob Butler interviews Markus Machado and Gail Mateo about the real estate deal brokered by Esperanza Johnson, a leader at Your Black Muslim Bakery for 20 years, that may cost them their home. (read more)

Esperanza Johnson
Esperanza Johnson

Audio Slideshow by Karl Mondon; Donald Taylor laments real estate deal with Antron Thurman

October 30, 2007 – “I think about it quite often, but there’s nothing I can do…I think about how they took the house from me,” Donald Taylor said haltingly in a soft, gravelly voice. (read more)

Antron Thurman
Antron Thurman

Audio Slideshow by Karl Mondon: Couple accuses Esperanza Johnson of fraud

November 1, 2007 – When Markus Machado and Gail Mateo wanted to buy a newer and bigger home in 2005, they went to a real estate broker they thought they could trust: Esperanza Johnson. (read more)

 Gail Mateo and Markus Machado
Gail Mateo and Markus Machado

Audio Link: Remembering Chauncey Bailey

August 9, 2007 – Upfront Radio, New America Media, Aug. 9, 2007: Odette Keeley gets a round-up of views from the ethnic media, saluting the legacy of Chauncey Bailey: Belva Davis – Anchor, This Week in Northern California, KQED, Earl Ofari Hutchinson – Political Columnist, The Hutchinson Political Report & African American Media Monitor, New America Media, Joyce Chen – Editor, Sing Tao Daily and Ted Fang – Editor-at-large, AsianWeek.

Chauncey Bailey
Chauncey Bailey

Audio Link: Yusuf Speaks

February 10, 2006 – Bay Area journalist JR Valrey interviews Yusef Bey IV, 19, for YO! Youth Outlook Multimedia and New America Media Feb. 10, 2006. Bey is CEO of Your Black Muslim Bakery and one of the men facing charges in connection with liquor store vandalism in 2005. That incident, which was caught on video tape and broadcast internationally, has sparked an anti-liquor store movement in Oakland CA.

Black Muslim Bakery member is recorded in a surveillance camera
Black Muslim Bakery member is recorded in a surveillance camera

Audio Link: The dangers of reporting on your hometown

August 11, 2007 – UpFront Radio, New America Media, Aug. 11, 2007: Sandip Roy speaks with Abi Wright, communications director for the Committee to Protect Journalists, about the dangers journalists face. The death of journalist Chauncey Bailey shows that while reporting from war zones is dangerous, sometimes taking on controversial stories in your own hometown can be just as dangerous, especially for ethnic media.

Scene where Chauncey Bailey was shot dead
Scene where Chauncey Bailey was shot dead

Audio Link: Chauncey Bailey Project reporters and editors interview Oakland police officials

October 9, 2007 – A dozen reporters and editors representing the Chauncey Bailey Project interviewed Oakland Police Chief Wayne Tucker, Assistant Chief Howard Jordan and Homicide Lt. Ersie Joyner III on Oct. 9, 2007, at police headquarters regarding crimes believed to be associated with Your Black Muslim Bakery and the murder of Oakland Post editor Chauncey Bailey. (read more)

OPD talks to the media
OPD talks to the media
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