Chauncey Bailey
I can't claim I knew him, but like more than a few Oaklanders, I knew who he was (he was locally famous for asking hard questions and for a few run-ins over the years with the powers-that-be around here), and I'd run into him at one or more interminable downtown functions (in my case in the newly-refurbished Rotunda building a few years ago, if I remember correctly). He was gunned down in broad daylight at 7.30am yesterday on his way to work as a well-known journalist for a local paper in downtown Oakland. Unusually for Oakland, it's got all the typical hallmarks of a targeted assassination — a carefully-chosen and very public location, a masked gunman, two shots to the back of the head from close range, a pre-planned escape. The news even made the Sydney Morning Herald's web site, which is probably a first for an individual Oakland gun death (at least since the days of the Black Panthers).
The killing was Oakland's 72nd homicide of the year (there have been two more since yesterday). Once again, let's put this into perspective: this gritty little city of Oakland (quite a bit smaller than Australia's Newcastle) will probably have more murders this year than in all of Australia's largest state by population, New South Wales.
(Picture by KTVU news).
2 Comments:
Jesus Christ.
Indeed. But it gets better — Bailey's murder has been publicly linked by the OPD to the Your Black Muslim Bakery down on San Pablo Avenue (surprise, surprise!). And seven more people were gunned down in Oaktown between the time I posted that article and right now…
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