FACES AROUND THE BAY

FACES AROUND THE BAY

INDICTED

Grand Jury Charges Yusuf Bey IV and Antoine Mackey in Chauncey Bailey’s Murder

By Thomas Peele,
Bob Butler and Mary
Fricker, The Chauncey
Bailey Project

A grand jury on Wednesday indicted Yusuf Bey IV, the scion of the defunct Your Black Muslim Bakery, on three counts of murder for ordering the killings of journalist Chauncey Bailey and two other men in 2007, an Alameda County deputy district attorney announced.
The indictment of Bey IV, 23, includes charges with special circumstances — allowing prosecutors to seek the death penalty against him. He allegedly told two of his followers that in exchange for killing Bailey, he would teach them how to file fraudulent loan applications that could reap hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Another man, Antoine Mackey, 23, was indicted on three counts of murder with special circumstances, including Bailey’s killing.
The grand jury also indicted Devaughndre Broussard, 21, in the killings Bailey and another man, Odell Roberson. His charges also carry special circumstances.
But Broussard, until Wednesday the only person charged in Bailey’s death, cut a deal with prosecutors in which he is expected to plead guilty to two counts of voluntary manslaughter in exchange for key testimony against Bey IV and Mackey.
In a statement to prosecutors last month, Broussard said Bey IV ordered him and Mackey to follow Bailey, learn his routine and then “take him out” before he could publish an article in the Oakland Post about the bakery’s troubled finances. Broussard said Bey IV promised the two help in securing loans worth hundreds of thousands of dollars through fraudulent applications.
Wednesday’s indictments came just hours after a judge for the second time ordered Bey IV to stand trial in an unrelated kidnapping and torture case from 2007 for which he faces a life sentence if convicted. The attorney representing him in that case, Anne Beles, declined to comment on the indictment.
Broussard will receive a sentence of about 25 years in exchange for his admissions and testimony, his attorney, LaRue Grim, has said. Grim said his client is prepared to plead guilty next week.
Bailey’s sister, Lorelei Waqia, said she grudgingly approves of the plea agreement with Broussard because it strengthens the chances of convicting Bey IV and Mackey in her brother’s slaying.
Bey IV “and Mackey are more dangerous than Broussard. In the perfect world, he (Broussard) would get life but that’s how a plea bargain is: You have to give a little to get a lot. It’s worth it to get the other guys,” Waqia said.
Still, Waqia said, the charges will bring little solace.
“Anything that happened from the day he passed until now is not going to bring him back. So, for me, there’ll never be closure because I’ve lost a brother; my father has lost his namesake; his son, my nephew, has lost a father who was a mentor to him,” she said.
Bey IV and Mackey are scheduled for arrangement next week. Bey IV is in Alameda County’s Santa Rita Jail on unrelated charges, but Mackey is in San Quentin State Prison on a burglary sentence.
The indictments of Bey IV and Mackey come after a lengthy re-investigation of Bailey’s killing by the Alameda County District Attorney’s Office.
The Oakland police homicide investigator first assigned to the Bailey case, Sgt. Derwin Longmire, is suspended and the department is moving to fire him after he was found to have compromised the investigation and had undocumented contact with Bey IV against orders.

FACE AROUND THE BAY

“I feel families should support each other in our community.  I am concerned with the economy and hope Obama’s plan helps,” said Carol Joseph, Hayward resident, as we spotted her going into a Beauty Supply House on her way to an event at the Lake Merritt Boat House with two of her boys, Tyrone, aged two; and Kaleb, aged four.  “My husband Charles Joseph is catering the affair,”   she explained.
Joseph works for the HUD and Public Housing in San Francisco. Her husband works for the City of San Francisco’s Homeless Coalition.
The family belongs to C.O.G.I.C. Church of God in Christ.
Photo and text by Barbara Fluhrer

Gwendolyn Carter

Post’s Poster Girl Has
A Chihuahua Dog

“I don’t like to see animals hurt, and I like to help them,” says Gwendolyn Carter of Pittsburg,  who dreams of one day being a veterinarian.
Carter has a Chihuahua named Lilo, “who is so little and acts so big that I nick named  him Big Lee.” Carter’s parents, Christine and Kenneth Carter, and her four sisters - Kineitha, Vanessa, Julisa and Lauren - are about to add a guinea pig to the family.
Carter graduated from DeAnza High School, took classes at Laney and hopes to go to a university one day.  She has worked for three years at the Post Newspaper. She was born at Brookside Hospital in Richmond and has been a member of Market Street Seventh Day Adventists Church  in Oakland all her life.
Photo and text by Barbara Fluhrer

Doris Barrett

A Rebel With A Cause

When she learned that all Berkeley Adult School classes at senior centers were to be cancelled this summer, Doris Barrett said, “We don’t have to sit still for this.”
She is advocating resistance to these cuts, which she says are due to state budget cuts that especially target seniors. “Seniors have given their lives for this community, and they should be rewarded, not punished,” she said.
Barrett points out that these programs are a necessity for elderly people in her exercise class who work from seated positions, who are unable to stand and depend on these classes for their health.
Barrett, a Berkeley resident for over 50 years, was born in Texas, attended Jarvis Church College and moved to California. where she worked awhile for the Oakland Public Library.
“I found my calling when I became a teacher in Early Childhood Education with Albany Unified School District,” she said, explaining that she worked for 38 years with children from all over the world at the University Village.
Barrett continues to volunteer at her church, Mills Grove Christian Church, and the South Berkeley Senior Center.  Her commitment to others has generated respect in the community, said Ruthie Gibbs, a friend who taught with her in Albany.“(She) is a wonderful person; she takes care of people everywhere she goes, “ said Gibbs.
Barrett put her hands on her hips, smiled and said, “Well, I hope!” Barrett’s late husband Bobby Barrett was band director at St. Mary’s College High School. They had two children, who Barrett sees often, as well as her two grandchildren.
Photo and text by Barbara Fluhrer.

DA Seeks Murder Indictment in Bailey Case

By Thomas Peele and
Bob Butler, and The
Chauncey  Bailey Project

Devaughndre Broussard spent hours on Tuesday telling a grand jury details about the killing of journalist Chauncey Bailey and two other men.
Broussard told grand jurors that he killed Bailey and another man, Odell Roberson, on the order of former Your Black Muslim Bakery leader Yusuf Bey IV, and that another man, Antoine Mackey, helped him. He also testified that Mackey admitted to him that he killed a third man, Michael Wills.
“Mr. Broussard is coming clean,” his attorney, LeRue Grim, said during a break in the proceeding. “He’s a human being seeking redemption. He has been living in a hell. He’s really suffered from this.”
Prosecutor Christopher Lamiero said he couldn’t comment. It was unclear when indictments would be handed up. Grim said he expected movement in the case next week. .
Broussard’s mother, Audra Dixon, waited outside as he testified in a sealed courtroom in the basement of the Wiley Manual Courthouse in downtown Oakland.
“I am lost and confused,”  Dixon said. She said she believes Broussard is “still covering up for somebody” and did not shoot Bailey or Roberson.
Grim said Broussard is being truthful about his involvement.
“I am satisfied the truth is being told,” he said.
Bey IV is jailed without bail in an unrelated kidnapping and torture case. Mackey is in San Quentin Prison on burglary charges. Both, in jail interviews with the Chauncey Bailey Project, denied involvement in Bailey’s killing.
Broussard told prosecutors that Bey IV kept a hit list of people “he wanted to get rid of” and that Bailey was on it along with other people he didn’t know.
Broussard said Bey IV ordered him and Mackey to kill Bailey before the journalist could publish a story about the bakery in the Oakland Post.
Bey IV offered the two help in creating fraudulent indemnities that he said would enable them to secure loans they could quickly default on, Broussard said in a statement given to Lamiero in March in preparation for Tuesday’s testimony.
Broussard is to plead guilty to two counts of voluntary manslaughter for killing Bailey and Roberson, according to Grim. In exchange for his testimony he will receive a 25-year sentence. He faced life in prison without parole.
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FACES AROUND THE BAY

Hanna Boru left Ethiopia when she was 24 and currently resides in Hayward with her two children.  She earned a Certified Nursing Assistant license and spends weekends doing home care.  During the week she is studying to become a Registered Nurse. Boru is a member of Oromo Lutheran Church.  She has visited her family twice in Ethiopia, she says, but is “happy to live in California.”
Photo and text by Barbara Fluhrer.

FACES AROUNF THE BAY

Jerry Donaldson was born in Laurel, Mississippi and began playing the piano at age 7. Exposed to many fine musicians in Laurel, he was inspired as a young child. He remembers, “Leontyne Price was born in Laurel, and  often came home, and many young students were  inspired by her”. He studied there with Price’s teacher, Mrs. H.Z.J. McInnis. His first teacher was a lady in his neighborhood, Evelyn Sidney.
Donaldson studied at De Pauw School of Music in Green Castle, Indiana, earning his B.A..and later spent a summer in France studying with, “whomever would take me”.
After moving to California, Donaldson continued as musician in various capacities: soloist, accompanist and church musician. Donaldson has been musician for Saints’ Rest Baptist Church, Down’s United Methodist Church ( for 25 years), and  is presently musician at St. Augustine’s Episcopal Church  (where he’s been for 4 years). He teaches piano from his Berkeley residence and enjoys composing and arranging.
Donaldson is visible as he moves around town on his bicycle, usually wearing a big hat.  Why music? “It is essential to my identity.  I think it was a calling I had.”
Photo and text by Barbara Fluhrer.

Adult schools to Cut Classes for Seniors and Disabled Adults

By Katy Murphy
Oakland Tribune

Adult schools across California have dramatically reduced their offerings in response to deep state budget cuts and a new budget policy that lets school districts dip into their once-protected coffers.
While the financial situations and priorities vary between districts, one of the biggest casualties statewide is programming for seniors and disabled adults.
In addition to programs for “older adults,” California’s adult education schools teach English to refugees and immigrants, give struggling teenagers a second chance to earn a diploma, show parents the ropes at their child’s public school, and provide career technical training opportunities.
Art, music appreciation, exercise and communication classes, often provided at community health care or adult day care centers at little to no cost, will be all but wiped out in some districts, such as San Leandro and the Union City-based New Haven district.
The San Leandro Adult School provides classes to 4,000 students a year, and its budget has been $2.4 million, including $398,000 in federal funds. Of the remaining $2 million, the state has cut $369,619.
“How did we get to this point?” asked Darlene Brown, activity coordinator for the Adult Day Health Center in East Oakland’s Foothill Square shopping center.
Last week, Brown and her students said goodbye to their teacher, Dapo Sowole, who recently learned he was out of a job. Sowole had taught seven classes for the Oakland Adult School and three for the Berkeley Adult School. All were targeted to seniors or the disabled, and all ended this week, he said.
At the moment, the Oakland school district does not plan to take money from the adult education fund, district spokesman Troy Flint said. The West Contra Costa school district, however, is using $1 million of its adult school’s $2.5 million budget next year to close a $25.7 million budget gap.
Knowing that more of their programs’ already diminished resources could be sucked into the school districts’ general funds, some adult school directors are protecting classes that match most closely with their school districts’ missions. Adult schools in Oakland, Hayward, San Leandro and West Contra Costa, for example, are trying to preserve such programs as parenting education and high school diploma classes — those with clear benefits to their local school systems.
The Oakland Adult School, one of the largest in the state, might reach some of its seniors with courses such as grandparenting, Director Brigitte Marshall said. Still, of the 254 classes it has eliminated, 206 were designed for “older adults.”
“I think everyone’s intentions are good, but there’s a little bit of shortsightedness here, said Roberta Tracy, program director of a low-cost adult day care program at the North Oakland Senior Center, which is losing all of its teachers. “This is such a vital service for this population. It’s keeping them out of nursing homes.”

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