AAN News
Alt-Weekly Writer On His Run-ins With the Yusef Bey Familynew
As we reported yesterday, the group behind the killing of Oakland Post journalist Chauncey Bailey waged a campaign of intimidation against then-East Bay Express writer Chris Thompson after he wrote a series critical of the group. Thompson, now with the Village Voice, recounts his experience being stalked by the group's followers. They tried to follow him home, so he'd have different colleagues drive him so they wouldn't recognize the cars, he writes. They repeatedly called him with greetings like "Mr. Thompson, I just want to say that your days are numbered," and "You fucked up for the last time, and your time is up." The death threats -- and the lack of response to his complaints by the Oakland Police Department -- forced him out of the Bay Area. "I spent several months out in the countryside of Northern California, reporting and writing my Metro column from an old hunting lodge ... [until] the goons got bored with hunting for me, and I slowly returned to the office full-time. Chauncey Bailey wasn't so lucky, but he fought the good fight against bad men."
The Village Voice |
08-08-2007 11:40 am |
Industry News
Tags: East Bay Express, Chris Thompson
Group Behind Journalist's Murder Threatened Alt-Weekly Reporternew
Last week, a 19-year-old follower of the
Yusuf Bey family shot and killed Oakland Post editor Chauncey Bailey, who was working on an investigation of the group and its headquarters, Your Black Muslim Bakery. Fortunately, former East Bay Express reporter Chris Thompson's run-in with the group didn't end so grimly. In 2002, the Express published Thompson's investigative series alleging acts of torture, rape, and sodomy perpetrated by the group. After the stories were published, the retaliation began. "Someone smashed up the windows of [the Express'] offices, and Thompson received numerous death threats," according to the Village Voice, where he's currently a staff writer. "Men repeatedly tried to follow Thompson home, or staked out routes he took leaving the office." Express editor Stephen Buel tells the San Francisco Chronicle that the intimidation campaign forced Thompson to work in a different county for months, and shook the paper to the point that "we stopped writing about the group."
Village Voice |
08-07-2007 8:24 am |
Industry News
East Bay Express First U.S. Paper to Cover Army-Photo Scandalnew
Last Wednesday, Chris Thompson reported that American soldiers have been trading gruesome photographs of dead and mutilated Iraqis in return for free access to an amateur porn site. Thompson wrote, "(I)n the weeks since the European press uncovered the story and in the week since the site was first noticed by Eric Muller, law professor and author of the blog IsThatLegal.com, not a single US daily newspaper had covered it." That silence ended yesterday when the Army announced that it has launched an investigation of the matter.
East Bay Express |
09-28-2005 9:54 am |
Industry News
