dogtown commons

This Sunday, 60 minutes will air a story on Chauncey Bailey, the Oakland Post reporter killed in broad daylight on 14th Street in downtown Oakland last summer. It sounds like typical television news magazine fare — a dramatic “exclusive” interview with accused shooter Devaughndre Broussard by celebrity anchor Anderson Cooper, with no new information at all. According to a preview article at CBS5’s website, Broussard repeats the same story he has been telling for months — that he was told by Yusuf Bey IV to confess to the murder even though he didn’t do it, and that he will name the actual shooter at his trial. This has all been known since last summer.

Shockingly, Oakland’s Assistant Police Chief Howard Jordan gives an on-camera interview alleging that Paul Cobb, the Oakland Post’s publisher, called Chief Wayne Tucker and told him that Bailey was investigating Your Black Muslim Bakery, which led police to bakery members. Whether or not this is true, Jordan knows that Cobb has received several death threats and took them seriously enough to request protection from the OPD. It is outrageous that Jordan would finger Cobb as a “snitch” on national television under these circumstances. (Let’s hope that anyone who might wish to do Cobb harm will be watching the Oscars instead.)

To the credit of KPIX, they led the 11 o’clock news on Friday with a story critical of their corporate parent’s 60 Minutes report. Manny Ramos interviewed Cobb about his anger at Jordan’s claims. Cobb says that he did not provide Chief Tucker with the information, and that the OPD already considered bakery members the prime suspects before they interviewed Cobb. I have no idea whether Cobb told Tucker anything, but I can’t think of any reason for Jordan to go on national TV and say that Cobb pointed the police in the direction of the bakery. Is 5 minutes of TV time with Anderson Cooper worth putting Paul Cobb’s life in further danger for?

By failing to record the conversation between Broussard and Bey in an interrogation room the day after the murder, the Oakland Police may well have hurt the chances of getting a conviction in Bailey’s murder. Jordan’s turn in the national spotlight sounds like a further disservice to Bailey and the city where he built his career.

(The KPIX interview with Paul Cobb can be viewed here at their website.)

UPDATE: The Oakland Tribune also wrote about this in Sunday’s paper.