Early Friday morning, Oakland police led a task force of a couple hundred officers that raided the headquarters of Your Black Muslim Bakery. It was evidently the culmination of a one-year investigation into alleged criminal activity by members of the organization. Officials would not say whether the raid was connected with the apparent assassination Thursday of Oakland Post editor Chauncey Bailey, who was evidently working on a story about the group’s finances. KTVU has footage of the pre-dawn raid, in which shots appear to have been fired.
KTVU quoted Oakland Deputy Police Chief Howard Jordan as saying that the raid was designed to search for evidence associated with “several violent felonies including, murder, robbery, and kidnapping.” This is not the first time the Black Muslim sect associated with the bakery has been associated with criminal activity. In 2002, the Express wrote a two-part series about the sect’s troubled history, which included past allegations of murder, torture, kidnapping, rape, and other crimes. You can read them here: Part One. Part Two.
