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Devaughndre Broussard (left) and Chauncey Bailey
The hitman who murdered former Detroit News reporter Chauncey Bailey in 2007 to silence his work as the top editor at the Oakland Post in Oakland, California, has been paroled. Bailey, 57, had been investigating an organization called Your Black Muslim Bakery in Oakland at the time of his murder.
Devaughndre Broussard was 19 when he walked up to Bailey in downtown Oakland, and fatally shot him three times with a shotgun. Broussard, who was serving a 25-year sentence, was released on June 5 after the system calculated in his good time, according to the Chauncey Bailey Project website.
Bailey was a colorful character who worked for The Detroit News from 1982 to 1992. He eventually returned to his hometown of Oakland, Calif., where he became editor in 2007 of the Oakland Post, the largest African-American weekly newspaper in Northern California.
Bailey had been working on an investigative story about the finances of Your Black Muslim Bakery, which was reportedly at the center of allegations involving a polygamist culture, fraud, and other questionable activities.
Broussard, who was a handyman and cook at the bakery, told authorities that Yusuf Bey IV, who headed the bakery, directed him to kill Bailey to prevent the publication of a damaging story about the now-closed Your Black Muslim Bakery, which was on the verge of bankruptcy.
Broussard struck a deal with prosecutors to serve a 25-year sentence in exchange for testifying against others in the case. He had been sentenced in 2011.
In June 2011, Yusuf Bey IV was also convicted of ordering Bailey's murder and, along with other charges, was sentenced to life in prison without parole. Bakery associate Antoine Mackey was sentenced to life in prison without parole for his role in the murder.
In March 2022, a street in downtown Oakland was named after Bailey.
Back in 2022, former News reporter Lou Mleczko, ex-head of the Detroit Newspaper Guild, wrote on Facebook:
Chauncey was an intense, tough reporter while at The Detroit News. I remember him, on his off time, standing outside in the bitter cold playing excerpts from Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream Speech" on MLK Day and urging staffers to join him, even for a few minutes.
It was a horrendous crime when he was murdered in Oakland. I am glad at least the perpetrators of that crime were eventually brought to justice.
Justin Ray of the Los Angeles Times wrote:
His name is one that every resident of the state should know, both because of the impact he had on California, and also because of the dramatic circumstances that led to his death. ...
Bailey was known as a brave journalist who would ask the first question at press conferences, according to Oaklandside. He wasn’t afraid of asking officials tough, pointed inquiries. He was also part of a generation of Black journalists who experienced both Jim Crow and the civil rights movement, and brought that knowledge to newsrooms.
