1 post tagged “evidence ignored in chauncey bailey case”
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...
