Testimony Unfolds at Trial of Alleged Killers of Black Newspaper Editor
Special to the Trice Edney News Wire from the Afro American Newspapers
(TriceEdneyWire.com) - The confessed killer of Oakland newspaper editor Chauncey Bailey testified March 24 against two other men implicated in the case, one of whom he claimed was the mastermind behind the murder.
Devaughndre Broussard, 24, pleaded guilty to killing the journalist in exchange for 25 years in prison and his testimony against Yusuf Bey IV and Antoine Mackey, both 25.
Bey is the former leader of the controversial Your Black Muslim Bakery in which Broussard was a janitor.
In Alameda County Superior Court March 24, Broussard detailed how he was recruited to work for the bakery after his release from jail on unrelated charges in 2006. Once employed, he said the shop’s workers referred to themselves as “soldiers” ready to “take action” on behalf of the Black community, according to The San Francisco Chronicle.
He testified that, soon after joining the bakery, Bey ordered him and other workers to shoot bullets at an unoccupied car that belonged to a foe of Bey’s.
“I fired it until it [his weapon] was empty, five or six times,” Broussard said, according to The San Jose Mercury News. After shooting the car, Broussard said he approached Bey about the incident, who responded, “We got to stick up for our brothers and sisters--that's what unity is.”
Prosecutor Melissa Krum told reporters that the tale demonstrates how Bey commanded his employees to commit crimes.
Broussard’s testimony is expected to span several days, and defense attorneys for Bey and Mackey have vowed to aggressively cross-examine Broussard.
“I don’t think he’s going to be found credible,” defense lawyer Gene Peretti told the Mercury News. She noted that Broussard has consistently recanted testimonies in the past. “He is a liar, that’s my opinion-- he is an admitted liar.”
If convicted, Bey and Mackey face life in prison without the possibility of parole for their roles in Bailey’s death and the unrelated murders of Michael Willis and Odell Roberson. They both pleaded not guilty.
Although Broussard did not detail Bailey’s murder during his first day of testimony, he has admitted to shooting the Oakland Post editor three times, as Bailey walked to his office in downtown Oakland in August 2007.
Broussard has alleged that Bey ordered him to murder Bailey, 57, because the journalist had been working on a story about the bakery’s criminal history and financial woes, according to the Chronicle.
The murder prompted a group of California-area journalists to launch the Chauncey Bailey Project, an effort to continue the veteran editor’s work and help crack the case in his unsolved killing.