Apparently the latest meme that had been circulating around the leftosphere over the last few weeks is that Armed Black Separatist or Paramilitary Groups are actually a fabrication of FOX News- and even if they aren't, then they're perfectly harmless blowhards in berets or bow ties who should be ignored. Heck, even Erick Holder's Department of Justice allowed them to engage in some videotaped voter intimidation with no real consequence.
With that said, this week marks the 3-year anniversary of the murder of Oakland newspaper editor Chauncey Bailey. Bailey was shot dead in broad daylight in downtown Oakland shortly before an investigative piece of his about the pending bankruptcy of Your Black Muslim Bakery for the Oakland Post was scheduled to be published. Bailey's killer approached the editor and fired three rounds from a stolen Mossberg 12-gauge shotgun before fleeing in a waiting Ford Aerostar van.
The Your Black Muslim Bakery was supposedly a grassroots enterprise that provided food, jobs and vocational training to inner-city youth and was run by a Nation of Islam offshoot. In practise, it combined the worst attributes of a cult and a street gang. Bailey's article was to highlight problems within the Your Black Muslim Bakery that were much more sinister than bankruptcy- since 2002, the local institution's management had been in flux when then-Bakery head Yusuf Bey was taken into custody for 27 counts of rape and sexual assault against minors. Bey died of cancer at the age of 67 while awaiting trial in 2003.
Bey's successor at the bakery didn't last long. Waajid Aljawwaad went missing in late February 2004 and his decomposing body was discovered in a shallow grave near King Estates Park in Oakland in July of that year. I'm guessing by his relatively short tenure and the Bakery's other ventures (extortion, assault, kidnapping, rape, real-estate fraud, homicide), Waajid Aljawwaad might've been the only person at Your Black Muslim Bakery who was interested in baking bread.
One of Bey's sons- Antar Bey- took over the bakery and mortgaged the property to cover back taxes and other costs before defaulting. Antar was shot dead in October 2005 in what police say was a botched carjacking.
A month later, men wearing suits and bow ties swarmed into a pair of West Oakland corner stores run by Yemeni grocers , smashing bottles of alcohol and windows. The shotgun used to kill Chauncey Bailey was stolen from one of these stores. Yusef Bey IV, the new head of the bakery, and an associate were arrested after surveillance camera footage of the attack began circulating.
According to the Chauncey Bailey project, Oakland Police Sgt. Derwin Longmire interceded on Bey IV's behalf with other officers investigating the market attacks.
Fast forward to 2007, when Bey IV and his associates decide to raise money for the bakery that's more than $1 million in debt by kidnapping and robbing drug dealers. In May 2007, they allegedly kidnapped two women who they thought were customers of an East Oakland drug dealer and began interrogating them in a vacant house when they were scared off by a passing patrol car.
The morning after Bailey's murder, Oakland Police arrested 19 members of the bakery in a series of pre-dawn raids on the bakery's four locations as well as other properties owned by Bey IV on probable cause warrants. Devaugndre Broussard, a 19 year old handyman at the bakery, initially confessed to being the triggerman who killed Bailey.
Bey IV was taken into custody on the earlier kidnapping charges and was secretly videotaped in a San Leandro Police interview room with his brother Joshua Bey and associate Tamon Haflin. In earlier interviews with the police, Bey IV denied knowing anything about the shooting of Bailey.
The lead investigator in the Bailey homicide was none other than Sgt. Derwin Longmire. A series of recorded phone calls turned over to Alameda County prosecutors in 2008 revealed that Bey IV and Longmire were good friends and that Longmire may have shifted the focus of the Bailey investigation away from Bey IV.
Broussard had also since recanted his his confession, saying that Bey IV had convinced him to take the fall. The unrelated kidnapping charges against Bey IV were dismissed by an Alameda County Superior Court Judge in April 2009, although prosecutors immediately re-filed charges in the case. Bey IV is also standing trial for real-estate fraud where another judge ruled that Yusuf Bey cannot act as his own attorney.
Yusuf Bey IV's attorney, Lorna Patton Brown, was alleged to have smuggled a hit-list of witnesses out of prison for Yusuf back in March of this year. The list was delivered to Bey IV's family and accomplices on the outside.
Of course, according to the NAACP and most press outlets, the tea party movement is far more dangerous than the Nation of Islam splinter group (or it's bakeries). I'm not sure how to break this to Keith Olberman and the good people (with plenty of time on their hands) at Media Matters, but however fringe Bey's group might be, they've already racked up a body count of black murder victims than a group of Americans expressing their first amendment rights.
Just some food for thought courtesy of Your Black Muslim Bakery.
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