Tonight on KQED public radio in San Francisco, Mark Schapiro appears on Health Dialogues in a discussion about toxins in consumer products, and efforts by the California Green Chemistry Initiative signed by Governor Schwarzenegger to put California at the forefront of chemical reform, aligning state laws more closely to those of the European Union.
Also, in this month's issue of Mother Jones, Schapiro writes about the economic consequences of the EU’s environmental initiatives, which challenge many of the cost predictions by industry and the long-reining American presumption that such measures are incompatible with economic growth.
Who's in charge of investigating the handling of Chauncey Bailey's murder case? It seems to be a political hot potato, according to a new article from The Chauncey Bailey Project.
The California Attorney General's office recently sent a letter to Mayor Ron Dellums declaring that state investigators want to be present when Oakland police internal affairs detectives interview members of their command staff. But the Attorney General's office will not take over the entire investigation, which according to the letter, is what Oakland internal affairs investigators requested.
The Oakland police being investigated by internal affairs include Detective Sgt. Derwin Longmire, the lead investigator of Bailey's killing; his boss, homicide unit Lt. Ersie Joyner; and Deputy Chief Jeffrey Loman.
An article in the San Francisco Chronicle this week also added more details about police blunders in the Bailey murder case.
An eye-witness account of the actions and statements of Your Black Muslim Bakery's leader Yusuf Bey IV immediately before and after Bailey's shooting on August 2, 2007, apparently was put in a different case file. The eye-witness report surfaced two months ago when a prosecutor found it by chance after requesting access to the other file. The Chauncey Bailey Project reported that police ignored several key pieces of evidence, including this eye-witness account, in an October 25 story:
The Bailey Project has also learned that police have a statement from another bakery associate who said Bey IV called a meeting the night before the killing. He ordered his followers to pray for strength, said two police officers knowledgeable of the statement.
The bakery associate told police that Bey IV, Mackey and Broussard also prayed together separately and complained that they had to wake at 5 a.m. the next day. After the killing, there was a mood of celebration at the bakery, the associate told police. Officers asked that the person’s name not be revealed, saying disclosure could endanger the person’s life.
The Chronicle provided further details this week:
... A woman who worked at the black self-empowerment organization on San Pablo Avenue in Oakland had told police that bakery leader Yusuf Bey IV was in a celebratory mood at the news of Bailey's slaying on Aug. 2, 2007.
"That will teach 'em to f- with me," she quoted Bey as saying.
The woman also related how Bey was "not happy" with Bailey's reporting on the bakery's financial collapse, and said she had overheard a telephone conversation in which Bey and another man apparently were "scoping out" Bailey's whereabouts the day before the Oakland Post editor was shot to death on a downtown Oakland street.
Hours before the killing, she said, Bey awoke at 5 a.m. to pray.
Oakland police admitted to the blunder Monday. Deputy Chief Jeff Israel told the Chronicle that Sergeant Derwin Longmire, the lead detective investigating Bailey's murder, had been notified of the eye-witness account, but the detectives involved later decided the statement was not relevant to Bailey's case.
"We definitely made a mistake here, no question," Israel told the Chronicle. "It's very troubling ... After I've listened to the interview, it was obviously relevant."
Today is the deadline for international chemical companies to comply with a sweeping new European law requiring proof that products they export are safe. On Marketplace, CIR's Mark Schapiro talks about the law, which may force American companies to make safer chemicals. Under the new regulation, called REACH (Registration, Evaluation and Authorization of Chemicals), the companies will have to pre-register their products—revealing detailed data about the chemical ingredients and their toxicity—before they are allowed to sell the products in Europe.
Will American chemical companies—who've resisted regulations at home that require giving up such information to consumers—clean up their act? Or will they simply stop selling certain products that don't meet the EU standards in Europe?
On the program, Schapiro points out:
If the United States does not keep up with what the European Union is doing now, what's going to happen is we are going to become the dumping ground for products that are banned in Europe.
The Overseas Press Club sent a letter to the California Attorney General in support of a re-investigation of Chauncey Bailey's murder:
November 17, 2008
Hon. Edmund G. Brown
Attorney General
California Department of Justice
P.O. Box 944255
Sacramento, CA 94244Attn: Public Inquiry Unit
Dear Mr. Attorney General:
The Overseas Press Club of America, a world-wide organization of six hundred international correspondents and editors, has been defending the rights of journalists around the world for nearly seven decades. It is rare that we find it necessary to speak out for freedom of the press in the United States. But the case of Chauncey Bailey, murdered editor of the Oakland Post, demands that we join the voices of so many others in calling for a fresh investigation of his murder. Now that you have agreed to open an investigation, as has the Alameda County District Attorney, we hope that this case can finally be resolved.
The Oakland police and the detective in charge of the investigation, Sargeant Longmire, have so muddled the investigation, shown favoritism and failed to bring out basic evidence that the case built up against Devaughndre Broussard seems unlikely to stand up in court. Sargeant Longmire had an association with Yusuf Bey IV, Broussard’s employer and head of the now-defunct, Your Black Muslim Bakery. Bey has a long criminal record and is now under arrest for a kidnapping. Within hours of the murder, Sgt. Longmire had decided to charge Broussard without bothering to follow up several important leads. Two years earlier, he had interfered on Bey’s behalf in two criminal investigations being conducted by other officers. Presumably, you are far more familiar with these and many other details than we are.
Our concern arises because a journalist has been silenced by murder. Bailey, as you know, had been investigating the Your Black Muslin Bakery. We note that Paul Cobb, publisher of the Post Newspaper Group, has since reported threats on his life. Some employees at the Oakland Post have quit for fear of violence, advertising is drying up and the paper itself may become a second victim of the assassination.
Murder is a common way of silencing journalists in some other countries but is fortunately rare in the United States. Chauncey Bailey’s case should not become an example of how to silence the press here. The mayor of Oakland has ordered a new investigation and at the same time requested your intervention. The mayor and others clearly believe, as we do, that this case should be investigated anew by an organization with the powers and prestige of your office.
We ask for the courtesy of an early reply.
Very truly yours,
Jeremy Main
Kevin McDermott
Freedom of the Press Committee
The Society for Visual Anthropology said Banished—a documentary co-produced by CIR about racial cleansings in small American towns—"has great anthropological value" and honored the film with an Award of Commendation.
From the SVA website:
From the first minutes of filmmaker Marco Williams’ Banished, viewers know that they are in the hands of a master storyteller. Williams’ multi-layered and complex story takes us into the cultural history of racial cleansing in the American South. The film focuses on the long forgotten banishment of African American families from several southern towns in the early 1900s. It takes us on an historical and emotional journey from yellowed newspaper clippings of the time to the present day descendants of the banished families and their struggle to gain recognition, justice and compensation for the land and possessions appropriated from their ancestors over a hundred years ago.
Banished never takes an easy or obvious turn. It refuses to reduce the issues to good and evil. Instead it subtly, carefully weighs the complexity of race, history, memory and the clouded path towards seeking reconciliation and justice for injustices of a distant past.
Marco Williams’ respectful on-camera probing results in surprisingly honest and emotional responses from allies and opponents alike. One’s allegiances keep shifting in viewing this film, making the questions it raises more critical and lasting than the answers, questions the audiences will be thinking about days, months, perhaps years after viewing.
Banished has great anthropological value. It reveals the structure of land holding African American families at the turn of the century and the consequences of their banishment and disenfranchisement on their descendants generations later. It also reveals much about the values of “black free” towns in the South today and the long shadows cast there by injustices of the past.
This week, a dispatch from FRONTLINE/World investigates a silent epidemic in Afghanistan—opium addiction among women and children.
A web-exclusive report by award-winning reporter Nadene Ghouri profiles young mothers at the Sanga Amaj treatment center for women in Kabul. In a country where few trained doctors remain—many have fled or prefer higher-paying work as translators—the clinic struggles to shelter female addicts from the crippling shame they experience in a restrictive, patriarchal society. The clinic can't provide heroin substitutes, such as methadone, but can offer a safe environment where women go through a slow withdrawal process with support and counseling.
An excerpt of Ghouri's report:
The story of Khadija, who has been in and out of the clinic, shows how easy it is for entire families to fall into addiction. She lost her husband and all but one of her brothers to war. "My last brother came to my house one day and I was so depressed I couldn't move," Khadija said. "He asked me to try his opium and I did. I forgot my pain."
To fund her habit, Khadija started to beg. While she was out of the house, her two children stole her drugs and began using too, she told me. Soon after, all of them were begging on the streets.
"We made a couple of dollars a day but we didn't buy food, just drugs," she said.
Khadija and her son and daughter were all treated at Sanga Amaj last year. But the children ran away and Khadija relapsed. Only her 12-year-old daughter, Gul Pari—which means flower fairy—came back to the clinic and is now drug free.
"She weighed 40 kilos when she first came in," said Hakeem. She was a little nothing."
The young girl didn't know that what she was doing was wrong; she just remembers the warm comfortable feeling the drugs gave her. When she stopped, first her feet hurt, then she began to hurt all over. "I couldn't eat and I was vomiting all the time. I was very scared," she said.
The Committee to Protect Journalists, an international organization that defends journalists worldwide, issued a statement today in support of the decision by California authorities to reinvestigate the Chauncey Bailey murder case:
From the CPJ website:
Bailey slaying to be investigated anew
New York, November 4, 2008--The Committee to Protect Journalists welcomes the decision by California authorities to undertake additional investigations into the August 2007 murder of U.S. editor Chauncey Bailey.
The move follows a lengthy report by a consortium of San Francisco Bay-area news organizations and journalists known as the Chauncey Bailey Project. In an October 25 report, the group outlined alleged police irregularities in the investigation; other questions were raised earlier this year by the CBS News program "60 Minutes."
The alleged irregularities include a failure to pursue evidence that the murder was the product of a conspiracy. To date, one suspect has been charged in the crime. In a lengthy statement released on Saturday in response to the Chauncey Bailey Project report, Oakland police said the investigation has been handled appropriately. But the statement, authorized by Assistant Chief Howard Jordan, confirms several facts reported by the Chauncey Bailey Project.
The Alameda County District Attorney Tom Orloff told journalists last week that he would take the unusual step of assigning his own investigators to examine the case. On Thursday, Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums asked California Attorney General Jerry Brown to open another investigation into the murder. "It is imperative that an investigative agency outside the city also conduct an investigation," he wrote in an October 30 letter to Brown. Dellums told journalists he was making the request in response to the report by the Chauncey Bailey Project.
"We welcome the additional investigations into the slaying of our colleague Chauncey Bailey," said CPJ Deputy Director Robert Mahoney. "The report put together by Bay-area journalists raises a number of very important and troubling questions that must be resolved."
Bailey was killed three blocks from his office by a masked person firing a shotgun. At the time, the journalist was investigating the financial dealings of Your Black Muslim Bakery, a local business that was associated with criminal activities, according to one of his sources, Saleem Bey, who later appeared on "60 Minutes." Witnesses said they saw a driver waiting in a white getaway van at the time of the murder, according to the Chauncey Bailey Project.
Hours after the shooting, police analyzing shotgun shells found at the scene discovered the same weapon was suspected in a separate shooting linked to the bakery, according to the Chauncey Bailey Project. Oakland police confirmed in their statement Saturday that bakery associates were considered murder suspects within 24 hours of Bailey's slaying. Early on the morning after the killing, Oakland police raided the bakery and made several arrests on unrelated charges involving the kidnapping and torture of two women. Detectives began to question those suspects about the Bailey murder.
The lead detective, Sgt. Derwin Longmire, has had a long association with the proprietor of the bakery, Yusuf Bey IV, who is indicted on a series of unrelated felony charges. Assistant Chief Jordan told Anderson Cooper of "60 Minutes" in February that he was aware of Sgt. Longmire's longtime relationship with the suspect Yusuf Bey IV. Jordan said it was "unusual, but not unethical" for the sergeant to be assigned to the murder case.
Longmire did not respond to requests for an interview, according to the Chauncey Bailey Project. He did not immediately return a message left by CPJ seeking comment. The Oakland Police Department statement defended Longmire's handling of the case, saying that he properly pursued evidence and leads.
After police raided the bakery, Longmire put two of those arrested--Bey and bakery employee Devaughndre Broussard--together in an interrogation room by themselves, according to "60 Minutes." Oakland police did not record their subsequent conversation. Assistant Chief Jordan told "60 Minutes" that "in a perfect world" the conversation "should have" been recorded.
Broussard told "60 Minutes" that Bey pressured him to take responsibility for the murder during their conversation in the interrogation room. After the conversation, Broussard confessed to Bailey's murder, saying he had acted as a lone gunman. Broussard's statement to police was widely reported, but he later recanted after speaking with a lawyer. Broussard told "60 Minutes" that he was innocent, but that he knew who killed Bailey and that he would reveal this information at his own trial.
The Chauncey Bailey Project report raises questions about a tracking device as well. Police investigating alleged crimes unrelated to the Bailey murder had placed the device on Bey's car prior to the murder. Data from the device shows Bey's car being parked outside Bailey's apartment building seven hours before his murder, according to the Chauncey Bailey Project. Police sources told the group that Bey, Broussard, and a third man--bakery employee Antoine Mackey--were in the vehicle at the time. Mackey was among those arrested during the raid of the bakery.
The report from the Chauncey Bailey Project also questions whether Bey's cell phone records were analyzed. The Oakland police statement said that Sgt. Longmire sought the cell phone records in two search warrants, but that he had to wait for the cellular company to provide the records. The records have since been delivered to the Office of the Alameda district attorney. The Chauncey Bailey Project, which said it independently obtained the cell phone records, reported that Bey was involved in a series of calls within minutes of the killing, including one to Mackay. Mackay, according to the Chauncey Bailey Project, is currently incarcerated on an unrelated burglary. He has not commented publicly.
Also in its report, the Chauncey Bailey Project questions whether Oakland police followed up on a video of Bey speaking with two other men in an interrogation room at the San Leandro Police Department. The video, posted on the Web site of the Chauncey Bailey Project, has the imprint of the San Leandro Police Department including the date and time of recording. Much of the dialogue is difficult to understand, although the Chauncey Bailey Project enhanced the recording. Several key parts of the recorded video are clear. San Francisco Bay-area media outlets have broadcast the video.
The video shows Bey telling associates in the interrogation room that he put the gun used to kill Bailey in his closet after the shooting. On the video, Bey mocked the fatal blast to the journalist's head and boasted that Sgt. Longmire was protecting him from being charged. Bey also is heard saying that he and Longmire decided to blame Broussard alone for the murder.
The other suspects in the room are Bey's brother, Joshua, and Tamon Halfin, both of whom are associated with the bakery, according to the project. Police in the San Leandro Police Department recorded their conversation as part of their investigation in the kidnapping and torture case, according to the Chauncey Bailey Project. Once detectives saw that the recording included dialogue related to the Bailey murder, they turned over the tape over to homicide detectives.
While disputing several specific charges by the Chauncey Bailey Project, the Oakland police statement does not address why no other suspect besides the alleged gunman has been charged. Neither does the statement address the San Leandro police video. Asked by CPJ if Oakland police had any comment about the video, Public Information Officer Jeff Thomason said: "We're letting the statement speak for itself. We're not going to comment further."
Bey was asked by police on June 11, 2008, about the video, according to the Chauncey Bailey Project. He said he was trying to mislead police by making up stories, and he denied having any role in the Bailey murder.
Nuestra Familia, Our Family, CIR's award-winning documentary about Latino gang wars, is being rebroadcast on PBS stations nationwide in September and October. Check local listings on the Voces.tv website.
This ground-breaking documentary goes inside one of California’s most violent and organized gangs. It follows a father's painful struggle as he turns his own criminal life around, then sees his son become deeply involved with the Nuestra Familia prison gang.
>> Learn more about Nuestra Familia, Our Family.
>> Watch the trailer:
The San Francisco International Film Festival is now accepting submissions for the 2009 festival, which will be April 23-May 7, 2009. Cash prizes total nearly $100,000.
Entries can be narrative, documentary, animation, experimental, youth-produced, television works on film, video or digital media. Submissions can be of any length. For the 2009 festival, SFFIFF is also creating a new, juried cash prize of $25,000 for best investigative documentary.
>> Visit the San Francisco Film Society website for more information.
This week YouTube and the Pulitzer Center for Crisis Reporting launched Project: Report, a journalism contest (sponspred by Sony VAIO and Intel) for citizen journalists to tell stories that might not otherwise be told.
The contest will take place over three rounds. The first round will be judged by the Pulitzer Center and will narrow the field down to the top ten reporters. The YouTube community will then vote to select the top five finalists and the ultimate winner. The winner will receive a $10,000 grant for travel abroad and the opportunity to work with the Pulitzer Center on a story of global importance. The finalists will also receive high-end video and editing equipment from Sony and be featured on the YouTube homepage. Additional prizes will be given to the top ten and top five participants as the contest progresses.
Assignment for Round One: Create and submit a video profile of an individual of significance in your community. The submission should be three minutes or less. Deadline for uploading is October 5.
>> For more information, visit The Pulitzer Center website: www.pulitzercenter.org.