Four reporters associated with the Chauncey Bailey Project will be awarded the McGill Medal for Journalistic Courage on Wednesday, March 24, at the UGA Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication. The reporters are Thomas Peele, Josh Richman, Mary Fricker and Bob Butler. The four wrote more than 100 stories about the group, the murder, and the police investigation.
Chauncey Bailey was editor of the Oakland Post, who was murdered in 2007 while investigating members of Your Black Muslim Bakery, headquartered in Oakland, California. The four reporters continued to tell the story despite obvious dangers.
The award is named after Ralph McGill who was regarded by many as "the conscience of the South" for his editorials challenging racial segregation. Richman and Butler said they were honored and humbled by the award. Peele said, "To win an award that memorializes the work of Ralph McGill is a high honor."
The San Francisco Chronicle reported today that Sgt. Derwin Longmire, the Oakland police sergeant who led the investigation into the 2007 slaying of journalist Chauncey Bailey, "has been cleared of internal charges that he compromised the probe to keep the leader of Your Black Muslim Bakery from being implicated."
Longmire has been on paid leave for six months as an internal investigation looked into the state attorney general's conclusion that he had mishandled the probe of the Aug. 2, 2007, Bailey slaying. State investigators had found "Longmire's inquiry was 'inexcusably lacking' for allegedly failing to look into bakery leader Yusuf Bey IV's possible role in the killing," the Chronicle reports.
Oakland police officials apparently disagreed, and Police Chief Howard Jordan has ordered that he return to duty. Upon returning, he will serve a five-day suspension for minor problems with other homicide cases, the Chronicle reports.
Longmire's attorney Michael Rains told the Chronicle that Longmire "always believed that Bey had orchestrated Bailey's killing ... and did nothing to keep him from being charged. Any problems in the case were, at worst, caused by Longmire being 'sloppy and inattentive to detail.'"
Reporters at The Chauncey Bailey Project have reported extensively on the ties between Sergeant Longmire and the Bey family, some of whom were suspects in the murder case. An investigation by Thomas Peele, Bob Butler, and Mary Fricker last October found Longmire ignored evidence of Yusuf Bey IV's possible involvement in the Bailey slaying, and that he interfered on behalf of Bey IV in two other felony cases. See the CIR timeline of Longmire's ties to the Bey family and the mounting evidence connecting Bey IV to the Bailey murder here:
According to the Chronicle article:
Longmire and Bey IV had known each other for two years before the Bailey killing. Several police investigators interviewed as part of the state probe cited that friendship in faulting the decision to put Longmire on the case.
In a memo to [Police Chief Howard] Jordan, acting Capt. Sean Whent, head of the police internal affairs unit, said the state findings showed Longmire "deliberately did an inadequate investigation ... most likely due to a relationship" with Bey.
Even Jordan told state investigators in February that given Longmire's friendship with the bakery leader, "I don't see how you can form the conclusion that it's not affecting his ability to investigate the case thoroughly."
The Chauncey Bailey Project won two awards at the 2009 Online Journalism Awards event in San Francisco over the weekend. The Project, a collaboration of two dozen news organization that fielded reporters, photographers, journalism students and editors to investigate the 2007 murder of Oakland Post editor Chauncey Bailey, won the Knight Award for Public Service and the Investigative Journalism Award in the Small Site Category.
“We were all extremely proud to be a part of the Chauncey Bailey Project,” said Robert J. Rosenthal, who served as the Project’s executive editor and is executive director of the Center for Investigative Reporting (CIR). “It’s especially meaningful to be honored by your peers, and we are proud to be part of the team that investigated this story. We want to thank the Online News Association for shining a light on the importance of quality investigative journalism in America and congratulate everyone who worked so hard to deliver a story with such impact.”
The collaboration that grew out of Chauncey Bailey’s tragic death is an example of what a diverse group of journalists can do when they agree to collaborate. Soon after Bailey’s murder, Sandy Close of New America Media, Dori Maynard of the Maynard Institute and Linda Jue of the Society of Professional Journalists gathered the many journalists and media outlets that became the Chauncey Bailey Project. Their collective reporting appeared in more than 20 news outlets throughout the Bay Area over the course of two years and led to multiple charges of conspiracy to kill Bailey, investigations of the Oakland Police Departments handling of the homicide, and the suspension of the lead detective on the case.
The judges who awarded The Knight Award for Public Service noted that, “The reporting is good and relentless under what were obviously and literally dangerous circumstances,” and that, “The reporters didn't shy away from exposing both criminals and police. The Chauncey Bailey Project is absolutely exemplary -- a type of investigation that we wish more organizations could pursue. Its role is necessary, the reporting great.” In addition to The Knight Award for Public Service, the Project received a $5,000 cash prize from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.
When explaining the best Investigative Journalism, Small Site award, judges stated that the Project was, “A tenacious and precise investigation of an institutional scandal that focuses on the murder of a journalist but explains much more about the community that created the conditions for his death.” The review continues, “…an exceptionally written and presented package….Strong photojournalism and timeline storytelling techniques… Outstanding ongoing effort two years hence.”
Lisa Pickoff-White, who joined CIR’s California Watch project in August 2009 as a multimedia producer, won a separate award for her student work at the Graduate School of Journalism at U.C. Berkeley. Pickoff-White won the Student Journalism, Small Team award for It Happens at Midnight. The judges stated, “It's fun, it's entertaining, it's creative… It as a fine example of how to tell an online story in multiple components.”
Pickoff-White was also one of more than two dozen U.C. Berkeley Journalism students who worked on the Chauncey Bailey Project.
The organizations that took part in the Chauncey Bailey Project were:
The Online Journalism Awards were launched in May 2000. They are administered by the Online News Association, in partnership with the University of Miami's School of Communication.
The Online News Association announced finalists for its 2009 Online Journalism Awards this week. The Chauncey Bailey Project, a collaborative multimedia reporting project by CIR, New America Media, The Maynard Institute, and the Bay Area News Group, among others, is a candidate in both the Investigative and the Knight Award for Public Service categories.
The awards will be announced at the ONA Conference in San Francisco on October 1-3, 2009.
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| At a shrine for journalist Chauncey Bailey, mourners remember his slaying two years ago this week. |
On August 2, 2007, journalist Chauncey Bailey was gunned down on a sidewalk in Oakland, California. Within weeks a team of reporters and editors coalesced to form The Chauncey Bailey Project, a collaborative effort to continue Bailey's reporting on Your Black Muslim Bakery, a controversial Oakland group, and to investigate the circumstances of his death and the slow-moving police investigation.
Two years later, the relentless reporting by the team—led by Thomas Peele, Bob Butler, and Mary Fricker—has produced tangible results.
A nine-part series by The Chauncey Bailey Project, published this week, commemorates Bailey's death and reveals new details about his slaying and the motives behind it.
As Devaughndre Broussard spent hours on Tuesday telling a grand jury details about the killing of journalist Chauncey Bailey and two other men, his mother waited outside a closed door and said she still doubts her son pulled the trigger. Broussard’s secret testimony in a sealed courtroom in the basement of the Wiley Manual Courthouse is expected to continue Wednesday morning.
The Chauncey Bailey project reported today that Police Sgt. Derwin K. Longmire was suspended from duty Monday for his handling of the investigation into journalist Chauncey Bailey’s killing in August 2007.
A timeline produced by the Center for Investigative Reporting last fall chronicles Longmire's involvement with members of Your Black Muslim Bakery:
From the article:
Longmire has been under investigation by both the police Internal Affairs Division and the state Justice Department since last year for his handling of the Bailey case and his ties to the former leader of Your Black Muslim Bakery, Yusuf Bey IV, who is jailed and awaiting trial on a host of charges, including kidnapping, torture, real-estate fraud, and assault with a deadly weapon.
The Chauncey Bailey Project reported in October that Longmire failed to document in his case notes evidence that pointed to Bey IV’s involvement in Bailey’s killing. Evidence not documented included a tracking device report that showed Bey IV’s car was parked outside Bailey’s residence fewer that seven hours before Bailey was gunned down in downtown Oakland.
Longmire also never documented in his case notes the existence of a secretly recorded videotape on which Bey IV mocked and laughed about Bailey’s killing, said he hid the gun used in the assassination in his bedroom closet and bragged that he ordered an underling, Devaughndre Broussard, to confess to protect the bakery.
Broussard is the only person charged in Bailey’s death. Broussard confessed that he killed Bailey to stop him from “writing bad things about the bakery” and Bey IV, but he has since recanted. His trial is scheduled for next month.
>> View the full timeline of Sgt. Derwin Longmire's involvement with members of Your Black Muslim Bakery.
The investigative prowess of reporters and editors working on The Chauncey Bailey Project was applauded by The New York Times:
[The Project] has had a deep impact on the city’s public life, revealing a jailhouse videotape that suggested a wider conspiracy in the murder and which the police seemingly ignored, and helping force the resignation of the Oakland police chief, Wayne Tucker.
The group has said that much of its work is done, but it says it will not shutter the operation completely until the investigation of Yusuf Bey IV, a son of the founder of the bakery, has been completed.
Congratulations to reporters Tom Peele, Mary Fricker, and Bob Butler, and the many others who have contributed to the project.
Who's in charge of investigating the handling of Chauncey Bailey's murder case? It seems to be a political hot potato, according to a new article from The Chauncey Bailey Project.
The California Attorney General's office recently sent a letter to Mayor Ron Dellums declaring that state investigators want to be present when Oakland police internal affairs detectives interview members of their command staff. But the Attorney General's office will not take over the entire investigation, which according to the letter, is what Oakland internal affairs investigators requested.
The Oakland police being investigated by internal affairs include Detective Sgt. Derwin Longmire, the lead investigator of Bailey's killing; his boss, homicide unit Lt. Ersie Joyner; and Deputy Chief Jeffrey Loman.
An article in the San Francisco Chronicle this week also added more details about police blunders in the Bailey murder case.
An eye-witness account of the actions and statements of Your Black Muslim Bakery's leader Yusuf Bey IV immediately before and after Bailey's shooting on August 2, 2007, apparently was put in a different case file. The eye-witness report surfaced two months ago when a prosecutor found it by chance after requesting access to the other file. The Chauncey Bailey Project reported that police ignored several key pieces of evidence, including this eye-witness account, in an October 25 story:
The Bailey Project has also learned that police have a statement from another bakery associate who said Bey IV called a meeting the night before the killing. He ordered his followers to pray for strength, said two police officers knowledgeable of the statement.
The bakery associate told police that Bey IV, Mackey and Broussard also prayed together separately and complained that they had to wake at 5 a.m. the next day. After the killing, there was a mood of celebration at the bakery, the associate told police. Officers asked that the person’s name not be revealed, saying disclosure could endanger the person’s life.
The Chronicle provided further details this week:
... A woman who worked at the black self-empowerment organization on San Pablo Avenue in Oakland had told police that bakery leader Yusuf Bey IV was in a celebratory mood at the news of Bailey's slaying on Aug. 2, 2007.
"That will teach 'em to f- with me," she quoted Bey as saying.
The woman also related how Bey was "not happy" with Bailey's reporting on the bakery's financial collapse, and said she had overheard a telephone conversation in which Bey and another man apparently were "scoping out" Bailey's whereabouts the day before the Oakland Post editor was shot to death on a downtown Oakland street.
Hours before the killing, she said, Bey awoke at 5 a.m. to pray.
Oakland police admitted to the blunder Monday. Deputy Chief Jeff Israel told the Chronicle that Sergeant Derwin Longmire, the lead detective investigating Bailey's murder, had been notified of the eye-witness account, but the detectives involved later decided the statement was not relevant to Bailey's case.
"We definitely made a mistake here, no question," Israel told the Chronicle. "It's very troubling ... After I've listened to the interview, it was obviously relevant."
The Overseas Press Club sent a letter to the California Attorney General in support of a re-investigation of Chauncey Bailey's murder:
November 17, 2008
Hon. Edmund G. Brown
Attorney General
California Department of Justice
P.O. Box 944255
Sacramento, CA 94244Attn: Public Inquiry Unit
Dear Mr. Attorney General:
The Overseas Press Club of America, a world-wide organization of six hundred international correspondents and editors, has been defending the rights of journalists around the world for nearly seven decades. It is rare that we find it necessary to speak out for freedom of the press in the United States. But the case of Chauncey Bailey, murdered editor of the Oakland Post, demands that we join the voices of so many others in calling for a fresh investigation of his murder. Now that you have agreed to open an investigation, as has the Alameda County District Attorney, we hope that this case can finally be resolved.
The Oakland police and the detective in charge of the investigation, Sargeant Longmire, have so muddled the investigation, shown favoritism and failed to bring out basic evidence that the case built up against Devaughndre Broussard seems unlikely to stand up in court. Sargeant Longmire had an association with Yusuf Bey IV, Broussard’s employer and head of the now-defunct, Your Black Muslim Bakery. Bey has a long criminal record and is now under arrest for a kidnapping. Within hours of the murder, Sgt. Longmire had decided to charge Broussard without bothering to follow up several important leads. Two years earlier, he had interfered on Bey’s behalf in two criminal investigations being conducted by other officers. Presumably, you are far more familiar with these and many other details than we are.
Our concern arises because a journalist has been silenced by murder. Bailey, as you know, had been investigating the Your Black Muslin Bakery. We note that Paul Cobb, publisher of the Post Newspaper Group, has since reported threats on his life. Some employees at the Oakland Post have quit for fear of violence, advertising is drying up and the paper itself may become a second victim of the assassination.
Murder is a common way of silencing journalists in some other countries but is fortunately rare in the United States. Chauncey Bailey’s case should not become an example of how to silence the press here. The mayor of Oakland has ordered a new investigation and at the same time requested your intervention. The mayor and others clearly believe, as we do, that this case should be investigated anew by an organization with the powers and prestige of your office.
We ask for the courtesy of an early reply.
Very truly yours,
Jeremy Main
Kevin McDermott
Freedom of the Press Committee