SAN FRANCISCO
Lee Heidhues 6.10.2025
I read the news tonight that the killer of my fellow journalist and friend Chauncey Bailey https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chauncey_Bailey has been paroled.
In the 1970’s Chauncey and I were both reporters at San Francisco’s black community newspaper The Sun Reporter. We worked on a number of stories together. Perhaps the most famous and notorious occurred when we exposed an undercover operation by the SFPD. A female cop posing as a prostitute was stationed in the city’s Western Addition. Her mission was to arrest customers, “johns”, who were soliciting her for tricks. We caught it on camera. SFPD had to stop the program.
Chauncey went on to establish himself working for the Hartford (Connecticut) Courant and other publications. He eventually returned to his East Bay roots becoming editor of the Oakland Post. He was gunned down in cold blood on the morning of August 2, 2007. Chauncey had been working on a story to expose corruption within the Your Black Muslim Bakery.
I was mortified and saddened when I learned of Chauncey’s political assassination. Assassinated for doing his job.
Equally mortifying and disgusting is the fact Donald Trump used Chauncey’s assassination to gain political advantage during the 2024 presidential campaign.
Excerpted from The Oaklandside 6.9.2025
The hitman who shot-gunned Oakland newspaper editor Chauncey Bailey to death nearly 18 years ago in one of the most horrific attacks on a journalist in American history has been released from state prison.
Bailey’s sister, Lorelei Waqia, said she was notified this week by the California Department of Correction and Rehabilitation that Devaughndre Monique Broussard has been paroled. He is living in Southern California.
Broussard, then 19, killed Bailey on Aug. 2, 2007. He eventually admitted that he did so on orders from Yusuf Bey IV, the leader of Oakland’s now defunct Your Black Muslim Bakery, to stop a story Bailey was writing about the bakery. He also admitted killing another man, Odell Roberson, in revenge for Roberson’s nephew killing Bey IV’s brother in 2005.
Last fall, Broussard suddenly became fodder in the presidential campaign when Donald Trump claimed Bailey’s killing was an example of then Vice-President Kamala Harris being soft on crime during her time as San Francisco district attorney in the mid 2000s. It centered on Broussard’s beating and robbery of a man on a San Francisco Muni train in 2005.
Trump alleged that Harris went light on Broussard by agreeing to a plea agreement that resulted in Broussard being placed on probation, the first year of which he served in county jail. Rather than being free to kill Bailey two years later, Trump claimed Broussard should have been in prison. But legal experts called that claim overblown for a first-time offender and said the case — which Harris played no role in — was handled properly.
Lee's Perspective 