Free Republic

In many countries, journalists who investigate political corruption or major crime figures get thrown into prison, gunned down or kidnapped -- never to be heard from again. In the United States, however, few people have been crazy enough or bold enough to assassinate a journalist to stop a story. It has happened twice. In 1976, when Arizona Republic Reporter Don Bolles was mortally wounded in a car bombing in Phoenix. Then, on Aug. 2, 2007, when a brainwashed 19-year-old man with a sawed-off shotgun ambushed journalist Chauncey Bailey as he walked from a McDonald's in downtown Oakland to his newspaper...

OAKLAND -- After striking a deal with prosecutors, Devaughndre Broussard described in detail how he carried out orders from the leader of Your Black Muslim Bakery to kill Oakland journalist Chauncey Bailey, including specific instructions to fire enough rounds to make sure "it ain't no coming back." The 21-year-old former handyman for the bakery chillingly and nonchalantly took prosecutor Chris Lamiero step by step March 23 and 24 through the events surrounding the slayings of the Oakland Post editor and another man. Both shootings, he said, were ordered by Yusuf Bey IV, the leader of the bakery, a now-defunct black...

OAKLAND — Yusuf Bey IV was heavily involved in guns and gun violence well before the killing of journalist Chauncey Bailey last year — a killing he is suspected of ordering — despite his claims to police that he didn't allow weapons at Your Black Muslim Bakery and disavowed their use.Recorded jailhouse telephone calls and three statements given to police before and after Bailey's Aug. 2, 2007, killing implicate Bey IV in a 2006 shooting of a car belonging to the former boyfriend of a woman with whom he was involved and a June 2007 shootout at a San Francisco...

Your Black Muslim Bakery leader Yusuf Bey IV kept the gun used to kill journalist Chauncey Bailey in his closet after the attack and bragged of playing "hella dumb" when investigators asked him about the shooting, according to a secretly recorded police video.He describes Bailey's shooting in detail on the video, then, laughing, he denies he was there, and boasts that his friendship with the case's lead detective protected him from charges.Bey IV has not been arrested in Bailey's Aug. 2 death; Devaughndre Broussard, a then-19-year-old bakery handyman, has been charged in the killing. In an interview last week at...

Oakland, Calif. (AP) -- The man accused of killing journalist Chauncey Bailey said in an interview with CBS'"60 Minutes" that he will reveal who the real murderer is when his case goes to trial. The interview with Devaughndre Broussard, scheduled to air on Sunday, is part of a bigger story the show is doing on Bailey, the former editor of the Oakland Post who was named this week as a posthumous recipient of the prestigious George Polk award for journalism. Bailey was gunned down in August in broad daylight as he walked to his downtown office at the Oakland Post....

One month before the slaying of a journalist who was investigating Your Black Muslim Bakery, the bakery's young leader urged his followers to be "strong soldiers" and combat the many enemies he said were conspiring to bring down the embattled Oakland institution. "We fight the government, we fight the police, we fight our own families, we fight our own people, and we fight Caucasian people daily - just to do right," Yusuf Bey IV declared in a fiery videotaped sermon obtained recently by The Chronicle. "They use our own people to go against us - people like you or I...

The shotgun used in the slaying of Oakland Post Editor Chauncey Bailey was stolen two years ago in one of two high-profile attacks on liquor stores blamed on Your Black Muslim Bakery members, The Chronicle has learned. When men in suits and bow ties vandalized the New York Market in West Oakland on the night of Nov. 23, 2005, authorities said, the group also took away a Mossberg shotgun a store owner had trained on them. Using a store videotape, Oakland investigators soon identified Your Black Muslim Bakery members as responsible for the vandalisms and robbery. But they decided not...

Oakland police put the main suspect in the killing of a journalist investigating Your Black Muslim Bakery in an interrogation room with the bakery's leader after the two were arrested, then left them alone and didn't record the conversation, sources close to the case said Friday. The suspect, bakery handyman Devaughndre Broussard, promptly confessed to police after the late-night session Aug. 3 with the bakery's leader, Yusuf Bey IV, said two law enforcement sources, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter. An attorney for Broussard, 19, called the police tactic highly unusual and said that...

Oakland police will seek formal charges as early as today against several people associated with Your Black Muslim Bakery, including the alleged killer of a newspaper editor who had been working on a story about the controversial group that operates the bakery, the city's assistant police chief said Sunday. Howard Jordan said Devaughndre Broussard, a 19-year-old handyman at the bakery, had confessed to fatally shooting Oakland Post Editor Chauncey Bailey, 57, near his offices Thursday morning. Broussard was one of seven people arrested in raids the following day. Jordan said Broussard and others, under investigation for their part in an...