Trump uses the murder of an Oakland journalist in a dishonest attack ad

A new Donald Trump campaign ad uses the tragic murder of an Oakland journalist 17 years ago as an opportunity to portray Vice President Kamala Harris as soft on crime.

The central claim of the 30-second video – that Harris helped journalist Chauncey Bailey’s killer get released from prison in a previous case – is false.

The ad begins with what appears to be archived news footage of Bailey’s lifeless body on a sidewalk. Bailey was murdered in Oakland in 2007. A narrator says, “We can’t show you his face, it was blown away by this man’s 12-gauge shotgun,” as a black-clad actor wearing a ski mask runs toward the camera in a reenactment with a gun. Dramatic shotgun blasts ensue. Then the narrator claims that the killing was preventable, that the killer “should have been in prison” because he had previously committed an attack – but Kamala Harris “put him back on the streets.”

The ad, running in battleground states that could decide the election, is part of a larger media offensive by Trump and super PACs affiliated with the Trump campaign to convince voters that Harris is soft on criminals when she ran the polling station in San Francisco, serving as the district attorney’s office from 2004 to 2011.

pic.twitter.com/FnRfEOo2Tt

– Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 15, 2024

By attempting to use Bailey’s killing to undermine his opponent, Trump is bringing a tragic and complicated piece of Oakland history into the national political debate in a way that misrepresents Harris’ role as district attorney. The ad is also notable because it focuses on the murder of a journalist. Over the past eight years, Trump has repeatedly attacked journalists: calling the media the “enemy of the American people,” encouraging attendees at his rallies to mock reporters and accusing the press of treason.

Oakland journalists who covered Bailey’s murder responded to the ad today on social media. “It is factually incorrect for Trump to claim that Chauncey Bailey was killed in 2007 because of Harris’ leniency as SFDA,” wrote Thomas Peele, author of Kill the messengera book that examined Bailey’s murder and the origins of the crime.

“This is flimsy and lacks context,” wrote Bob Butler, a retired KCBS reporter who covered Bailey’s killing and the aftermath extensively. “Broussard is no saint. He was one of a group of teenagers who attacked and robbed a man on a tram in October 2005. He pleaded guilty and was sentenced to one year in San Francisco County Jail. I doubt that Harris, as prosecutor, was even consulted about the case.”

An assassination attempt to stop a story

Bailey was killed because dangerous people believed he was about to publish a story that would expose their secrets.

On August 7, 2007, Bailey, editor of the African-American newspaper Oakland Post, was on his way to work in his downtown office when a man wearing a ski mask shot him in the back and head. He was the first American journalist to be murdered for his reporting since 1976.

The next day, Oakland police raided a North Oakland warehouse on San Pablo Avenue where the Your Black Muslim Bakery chain was headquartered. They arrested seven people, including Devaughndre Broussard.

Broussard worked at Your Black Muslim Bakery. The bakery had been founded many years earlier by a man named Yusuf Bey and had become a powerful political institution in the East Bay. According to journalist Thomas Peele’s book about the murder of Chauncey Bailey: Kill the messengerThe bakery spread the image that it was committed to the upliftment of the black community and provided jobs and training to those in need. It was presented as an example of black self-reliance.

It was also a criminal enterprise and a front for Bey’s polygamist cult, which was accused of rape, abuse and fraud.

Broussard was one of many formerly incarcerated men who worked at the bakery. He confessed to police that he was ordered to kill Bailey because the Post editor may have been working on a critical story about Your Black Muslim Bakery and the Bey family. Yusuf Bey IV, one of Bey’s sons, ordered the killing.

Bailey’s murder and the Oakland police’s missteps – mistakes and negligence that may have prevented them from stopping members of Your Black Muslim Bakery from committing violence – prompted a coalition of Bay Area journalists to call the Chauncey Bailey Project to ensure that no part of the story is exposed.

Kamala Harris didn’t let Broussard out of prison

Trump’s ad falsely claims that Broussard should have been in prison for an unrelated assault he committed nearly two years earlier, but that he was able to kill Bailey because “liberal prosecutor Kamala Harris put him back on the street.” brought”.

The lawsuit misrepresents the responsibilities of the district attorney and Harris, as well as her office’s actions in the case. It was a judge, not Harris, who decided Broussard’s sentence in the 2005 assault case.

The attack occurred on Halloween night when Broussard punched and kicked a young man on a bus, three weeks after his 18th birthday. According to press reports, he and several friends who were under 18 years old stole the man’s wallet.

Kamala Harris was elected district attorney of San Francisco the year before. An assistant prosecutor in Harris’ office charged Broussard with robbery, assault and assault with a deadly weapon. Broussard pleaded guilty to assault. There is no evidence that Harris was ever involved in the case or even knew about it.

Broussard faced up to three years in prison, but a judge sentenced him to one year and probation.

Had Broussard been sentenced to three years in prison, he likely would have been behind bars when Bailey was murdered. However, Broussard was not the mastermind of the murder and had accomplices; It’s likely Bailey would still have been targeted.

After Bailey’s murder, Broussard eventually took over the state’s testimony and testified against Bey IV. In return, Broussard was allowed to plead guilty to voluntary manslaughter. He received a 25-year prison sentence. A parole board denied his release in 2023. His next hearing will take place in 2028.

The mastermind of Bailey’s murder was Yusuf Bey IV, one of the bakery patriarch’s sons, who vied for control of the Oakland business and religious empire after Bey’s death in 2003. Bey IV was convicted of ordering the murders of Bailey and two other men and sentenced in 2011 to three consecutive life sentences without the possibility of parole.

Her Black Muslim Bakery closed in 2007.

Bailey’s life was celebrated in 2022 when the city renamed a block of 14th Street in his honor.