Posted on 10/29/2008 7:53:51 AM PDT by SmithL
Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums asked the state attorney general Tuesday to investigate the Police Department's handling of the August 2007 slaying of journalist Chauncey Bailey, amid lingering questions about the relationship between the lead investigator and the head of the Black Muslim group at the heart of the case.
"While I respect and appreciate" the efforts of the police, Dellums said at a City Hall news conference, "the residents of Oakland deserve to know that this investigation is being conducted with the utmost transparency, openness and integrity."
Dellums also said the lead investigator into the killing, Sgt. Derwin Longmire, a 23-year veteran of the Police Department, should be removed from the case.
The Chronicle reported last year that Longmire had a long-standing relationship with Yusuf Bey IV, head of the now-defunct Your Black Muslim Bakery. A 21-year-old bakery handyman, Devaughndre Broussard, was arrested in a raid on bakery-linked properties hours after Bailey was shot on a downtown Oakland street the morning of Aug. 2, 2007. He is the only person charged in the killing and has pleaded not guilty.
Bey was jailed the same day as Broussard in an unrelated kidnapping and torture case. In a secretly taped conversation, he boasted to followers that he had avoided being implicated in Bailey's killing because of his relationship with Longmire, The Chronicle reported last November.
Bey helped Longmire gain a confession from Broussard, after the investigator left the two men alone in a room for a conversation that was not recorded. Broussard's attorney has attacked the unusual arrangement.
Bey later told two followers in the secretly recorded session that Longmire had made it clear that getting the confession would "take the heat off the bakery," which had been linked to a series of violent crimes.
The Chronicle also reported that Longmire ...interceded
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
Very interesting. Thanks for posting. BUMP for Chauncey Bailey!
Very surprising.
African American politics typically support the most extreme America-hating side in any dispute, regardless of the facts, as a default position.
That Dellums would side against the Black Muslims here, even with a black victim, is very unusual.
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