Murder of Chauncey Bailey

Chauncey Bailey, editor-in-chief of The Oakland Post, was shot and killed on a downtown Oakland street on August 2, 2007. At the time, he was working on a story examining the finances of Your Black Muslim Bakery (YBMB), a business then on the verge of bankruptcy. His killing prompted fellow journalists to form the Chauncey Bailey Project to continue his reporting and pursue the facts of his death, and he is described as the first American journalist killed for domestic reporting since 1976.

In the months before his death, YBMB had filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy with roughly $900,000 in debts, including money owed to the IRS, and faced foreclosure on its property. A former bakery employee, Ali Saleem Bey, said he had served as a source for an earlier story by Bailey that the Post's publisher, Paul Cobb, chose not to run. Cobb later said police had asked him not to discuss the matter.

On the morning of the murder, Devaughndre Broussard, a 19-year-old bakery employee, was driven in a van by 21-year-old fellow employee Antoine Mackey. Broussard, wearing a ski mask and carrying a shotgun, approached Bailey near a McDonald's on 14th Street that Bailey visited as part of his regular walk to work, and shot him multiple times at close range; Bailey died at the scene. Broussard had unsuccessfully searched for Bailey at his apartment and workplace earlier that morning and the night before.

A large pre-dawn police raid on August 3, 2007, targeting bakery properties and nearby homes led to the recovery of the shotgun used in the killing and the detention of 19 people, including Broussard, who was booked on suspicion of murder. Broussard initially confessed to the killing, calling himself "a good soldier," but later recanted, telling CBS News that he had been coerced by Yusuf Bey IV into pleading guilty to protect others who had been arrested. He ultimately pleaded guilty to manslaughter in exchange for a 25-year sentence and testimony against Bey IV and Mackey, and was released on parole in 2025.

A 2009 grand jury indictment charged Yusuf Bey IV, YBMB's owner, with ordering Bailey's execution as well as the killings of Odel Roberson and Michael Wills; Antoine Mackey was charged in the same indictment with participating in all three murders. At trial, Broussard testified that Bey IV ordered him to find, track, and kill Bailey before Bailey could publish his story. On June 9, 2011, a jury convicted both Bey IV and Mackey of multiple counts of murder, including three counts of first-degree murder against Bey IV; both were sentenced to life in prison without parole. A California appeals court upheld the convictions in 2015. Bey IV's attorney was separately convicted in 2013 of smuggling documents, including a hit list, out of jail on his behalf.