Evidence ignored in Chauncey Bailey case

Det. Longmire

OAKLAND — The lead detective assigned to investigate journalist Chauncey Bailey's killing ignored evidence linking Yusuf Bey IV, former leader of Your Black Muslim Bakery, to a role in the killing and interfered in two other unrelated felony cases involving Bey IV, according to an investigation by the Chauncey Bailey Project.

The Bailey Project's reporting has led to a police internal affairs investigation of that detective, Sgt. Derwin Longmire, and whether his relationship with Bey IV may have compromised the case.

Law enforcement officials said the investigation of the Bailey killing is in crisis.

If Longmire is charged with administrative or criminal wrongdoing, the chances of convicting the one person charged, Devaughndre Broussard, might be jeopardized.

At the same time, if a vigorous investigation of Bailey's killing is not quickly undertaken, chances of ever charging others and fully solving the most prominent slaying of an American journalist since 1976 could be lost.

In a highly unusual move, the Alameda County District Attorney's Office has launched its own investigation to determine whether there was a conspiracy to kill Bailey. The district attorney's probe is independent of the Oakland police and two investigators have been assigned to the work. Usually a case has one investigator.

Evidence the Bailey Project obtained during its lengthy investigation includes data from a tracking device hidden on Bey IV's car that shows it outside Bailey's apartment seven hours before the Aug. 2, 2007, killing. Police say Bey IV and Broussard both admitted to being in the vehicle at that time along with a third man who worked at the bakery, Antoine Mackey.

The Bailey Project could find no documentation in case notes that Oakland police officials ever analyzed Bey IV's cell phone data. The Bailey Project, however, obtained and analyzed the records. Through police and court records and online databases, the Project identified the people associated with the numbers that Bey IV called, as well as the people who called Bey IV.

Those cell phone records show that Bey IV was on the phone with an acquaintance of Bailey while Bey IV, Mackey and Broussard were outside the residence. They also show Bey IV involved in a series of phone calls within minutes of the killing, including one to Mackey, who, like Broussard, is from San Francisco and who has a long juvenile and adult criminal record. Mackey is currently incarcerated on a burglary conviction.

Additionally, the Bailey Project learned that Bey IV has spoken with Longmire repeatedly from Santa Rita Jail in Dublin, where the bakery leader has been held on unrelated charges since his arrest in August, 2007.

Seven legal and criminal experts, including a retired superior court judge, a former prosecutor and a former police commissioner, reviewed documents for the Bailey Project and said that Longmire's investigation raises questions about whether he was protecting Bey IV from charges, ignored involvement of others and instead, pinned all blame on Broussard, now 20, who worked at the bakery as a handyman and who confessed to the killing. He later recanted.

Bey IV, 22, has repeatedly denied involvement in Bailey's killing.

District Attorney Tom Orloff, Oakland police Chief Wayne Tucker, Assistant Chief Howard Jordan, homicide unit commander Lt. Ersie Joyner and Longmire all rejected repeated requests for interviews for this story.

In past interviews, department leaders have defended Longmire's investigation of the case and complimented his skilled interrogation in getting Broussard to confess. Joyner said Longmire was a fine detective doing excellent work. Jordan said it was unusual but not unethical for a lead investigator on a case to be friends with persons involved in it.

"I don't have any problems with Sgt. Longmire's relationship with members of the bakery," Jordan said in a televised interview in February. "I trust his integrity. I trust his credibility."

But former Santa Clara County Judge LaDoris Cordell said Longmire should have recused himself from the case and that department leaders should have seen the conflict. A detective who is friends with a person suspected in a killing "should have no involvement in the investigation at all," she said.

The internal affairs probe of Longmire is also looking at a succession of calls made in the past four months. Bey IV calls the mother of his three children who then conferenced in Longmire on three-way calling, according to law enforcement officials familiar with the case.

The legal experts who reviewed Longmire's case notes, recordings of interviews with Broussard and Bey IV, a report on the tracking device and other documents for the Bailey Project said the investigation is severely compromised.

"I felt from reading all of this, a sense of a bias, a bias on the part of Sgt. Longmire, in favor of "... those involved with the bakery," said Cordell. "I didn't feel a sense (of) objectivity that I think has to be there for a competent investigation."

Longmire's case notes of the investigation is "suspiciously incomplete," said Richard Leo, a University of San Francisco law professor and nationally recognized criminal expert.

"Is Longmire blind?" Leo said. "Journalists after the fact investigating a murder shouldn't be discovering big pieces of seemingly inculpatory evidence of knowledge and involvement and participation in that murder (by uncharged people) that police knew about and didn't thoroughly investigate and thoroughly document."CONTINUE READING...