Silence too prevalent in Bailey case

0 Comments | Oakland Tribune, May 31, 2009 | by Anonymous

CHAUNCEY Bailey is an unlikely First Amendment martyr.

His lifelong career in journalism was one of descent -- from the Detroit News to the Oakland Tribune, where he was fired for ethical lapses, to a tiny, free circulation weekly, the Oakland Post.

What remained in him was the fire for a good story. He was working on one for the Post about Your Black Muslim Bakery when he was gunned down in the street on Aug. 2, 2007.

There is little doubt now that he was killed for nothing less that exercising the constitutionally protected craft of reportage.

Bakery leader Yusuf Bey IV "was like, 'we gotta take him out before he write that story,' " Devaughndre Broussard, who has admitted to killing Bailey, told a prosecutor in March.

The first of many ironies about Bailey's killing is that his story was never published. Post publisher Paul Cobb spiked it because Bailey failed to properly attribute the information in it that came from a single, anonymous source.

Last year, Cobb let me and the wonderful oral historian Lani Silver, who has since died, read Bailey's 500-word unpublished story.

Cobb was right about the lack of attribution. But Bailey wasn't wrong with what he had learned about Bey IV and the bakery, even if much of it could have been easily drawn from the public file of the bankruptcy proceeding in which it was embroiled.

It certainly wasn't a story worth killing.

For 20 months, Broussard was the only person charged in Bailey's killing despite piles of evidence that pointed to Bey IV's involvement. Earlier this month, a grand jury returned murder indictments against Bey IV, and he will be finally held accountable in Bailey's death.

What both frightened journalists and motivated stories about Bey IV were fears that he would get away with ordering a journalist killed to stop a story. Had the indictments not been returned, that's what would have happened.

Still, the murder of Bailey and its aftermath are filled with ironies about a free press and an informed public.

Oakland Mayor Ronald Dellums promised last year that an investigation of how police handled the Bailey case would be transparent.

It has been anything but that. Dellums even said he would appoint a special master, retired Judge Henry Ramsey, to oversee the internal investigation. But Ramsey was never given anything to do.

Although the Oakland Police Department has charged the detective assigned to the Bailey case, Sgt. Derwin Longmire, with wrongdoing, there has been no public accounting of what the investigation of him specifically found.

Oakland paid Longmire $200,750.68 in 2008, according to city records. His then boss, Lt. Ersie Joyner, was paid, $272,134.25. He faces discipline for improperly supervising Longmire.

Throw in the $202,141.62 paid to then Deputy Chief Jeff Loman, also facing discipline for failure to supervise, and the gross pay for the three totals $675,026.55.

For that kind of money the public deserves answers.

But police in California are protected by the worst kind of special interest law, one that blocks public access to administrative charges against officers -- even ones like Longmire facing termination for compromising a murder investigation.

When an administrative investigation results in discipline against any other type of government employee the record is public. But not for cops.

"This investigation is being conducted with the utmost transparency, openness and integrity," a prepared statement issued by the mayor's staff in October quoted him as saying.

But now, Dellums and other city officials are mum on the matter, citing the usual rhetoric about police personnel records. The mayor - - or at least his advisers -- should have known better than to promise a level of transparency they couldn't deliver.

The Bailey case could soon take another twist -- lawyers for Bey IV want to make permanent a gag order in the case. And both sides want the transcript of the grand jury proceedings -- usually an open record -- sealed.

By the time this column appears, the matter could be decided. A gag order for a first amendment martyr is, at best, ironic.

Bey IV even had a Web site -- now taken down -- on which he proclaimed his innocence before he was even charged in Bailey's death. He's given jail interviews. Now his lawyers want to stop anyone from talking about the case -- a case where a journalist was slain in an alleged attempt to to silence him.

Gag orders do little to stop media coverage of a criminal trial. They just leave the public clamoring for answers and prosecutors -- who are public employees -- unable to explain how they are doing their jobs.

There's already been enough silence, by murder, in the story of Yusuf Bey IV and Chauncey Bailey.

Let everybody talk.