2 days ago
Oakland Post editor's confessed killer paroled after years in prison
The man convicted of killing an Oakland newspaper editor who was investigating the finances of a Black empowerment group in 2007 was released from prison last week, officials told the Chronicle.
Devaughndre Broussard was released into parole supervision on June 5, according to a California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation spokesperson. No other details regarding his release were immediately provided.
Chauncey Bailey, the editor of African-American weekly the Oakland Post, had been investigating the bankruptcy proceedings of Your Black Muslim Bakery before he was killed. Broussard, a member of the bakery group, testified in 2011 that its leader, Yusuf Bey IV, had ordered him to learn where Bailey lived and 'find out his routine,' according to a Chronicle report. 'He wanted us to take him out before he wrote that article.'
Broussard confessed to killing Bailey with three shotgun blasts on Aug. 2, 2007 as Bailey was walking to work at 14th and Alice Streets in downtown Oakland, according to a previous Chronicle report. A federal judge ordered the bakery to liquidate its assets amid debt and management problems the week following Bailey's killing.
Broussard was sentenced to 25 years in prison after pleading guilty to two counts of involuntary manslaughter for the slayings of Bailey and Odell Roberson, 31. Roberson was the uncle of the man who shot and killed Bey IV's brother near the former San Pablo Avenue bakery. Broussard promised to testify against Bey IV and Antoine Mackey, a former bakery associate, who was also a suspect in Bailey's killing.
Bey IV was sentenced in 2011 to spend the rest of his life in prison for ordering the killings of Bailey, 57, Roberson, 31, and Michael Willis, 36. Jurors decided that Bey IV was guilty of murdering Bailey because he had ordered Broussard to pull the trigger. Mackey was convicted of two counts of first-degree murder for Bailey and Willis's killings, the Chronicle previously reported.
In 2015, a state appeals court denied Bey IV and Mackey's motion to overturn their convictions, dismissing claims that their trial should have been moved from Alameda County due to negative publicity.